A Stranger's Tale
by Lord Viraden
Summary: I was just an average joe, that is until I found an artifact that throws me across the very fabric of space and time. As my first unexpected stop, I land in the middle of the first Mass Effect game. But my arrival sparks a storm of changes to the game's plot that I can barely imagine. Its up to me and a motley crew to travel behind the scenes and fix the damage that's been done
1. A rough morning

**I noticed everyone else had been doing a self insert, so I decided what the heck, I'll give it a shot. Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect, Bioware created it, blah blah blah, everybody knows that it's just fanfiction.**

**And to start us off so I don't scare you away with the first chapter, I'll give you a brief outline about my character and some of the things you'll see to speed things up. My name is Axel Sorenson. I'm currently 25 years old and was a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces. I lived in a small home just outside of Thunder Bay. I led an alright life, had a good job, and I served my country. Yup, things were looking good, that is until I found something one day on my last day of leave, something that I...I can't quite describe. All I know is, it changed me from being an out of college soldier to being thrown from the world I knew into a whole bunch of seemingly unconnected dimensions. Eventually I landed right in the middle of the Mass Effect Universe. From there I began...wait a minute? I'm telling you the whole story! Alright you know what, here, just read it for yourself.**

I lay on my stomach, my face half buried into my pillow as I lay on my one matress bed. (And when I say one matress, I mean it was literally a single matress on a bare gray carpet floor.) I slept with nothing but my boxers on and a thin white sheet I had gotten from a second hand store. Looming over my passed out form was an unpainted endtable, made from cedar wood that I'd built in wood working class back in highschool. Ontop of it was a single alarm clock that read 12:59.  
In just a few seconds, the peacefull slumber I was enjoying was shattered by the blarring scream of my alarm. In an instant, I lazily reached out my hand and yanked out the wire plugged into the wall jack next to me. However the alarm had already done its job.  
Now I had a throbbing headache, and me being the guy I was known for, had been out getting hammered at a going away party the night before.

_'Early morning mixed with a slight case of hangover_, _what a great way to appear for role-call_.'

With that thougt in mind, I slowly lifted my head up from my pillow enough to get a good look at my wristwatch. (Hey, it's easier than getting up to look at clock a foot taller than you.)  
It took a moment for my vision to clear enough to see the two hands ticking away on the face in front of me. When I finally saw the time, now 1:01, a bolt of adrenaline shot through me, bringing me back to the land of the living. Quickly I pushed my self up off the matress and consequently cracked the back of my head on the wooden shelf built into the wall above me.  
"AHH!" I shouted in anger as I grabbed my head and fell over off of the matress. A sharp pain was now throbbing through my already aching skull.

_'This is not the way to start Axel_' I thought to myself as I rubbed the back of my head.

Quickly I stumbled up from the floor and made my way over to my closet, where my Army uniform and duffle back hung pristinely over a large pile of rumpled clothing. I knelt down in front of it and dug my hands in, pulling out the basic clothes I needed: jeans, a black T-shirt and some socks. After slipping those on I checked my watch again, this time it read 1:08.  
"Shit," I cursed under my breath as I went over and snatched my wallet and a pair of keys off the endtable. After slipping on a leather jacket and some sneekers, I un-hooked my uniform and duffle bag from the closet rack and dashed for the door.

The sharp sting of late November helped to fully wake me up as I threw open the door, taking in a lungful of fresh cold air. I rubbed my hands together as I shouldered by baggage and made my way to the fourwheeler parked a few feet from my door. Despite it being past noon, frost still lingered on the long grass around my house, as well as all over my vehicle. After sliding on, I slid the key into the ingnition and began the slow process of bringing the old quad back to life. Eventually, after a few tries, the old motor turned over and roared alive. Smiling to myself I kicked it in gear and accelerated up the hill towards the main road, but I was already too late behind schedule. I hit the break and checked my watch a final time, 1:18. I let out a tired sigh as I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

"This is not going work," I said out loud. The quad was still running, the sound of traffic could be heard up ahead, but I still wasn't going to make it to the base in time. I needed a short cut, and fast.

I looked to my left and then to my right, and after a few minutes I saw what I was looking for. A small worn out path leading in the exact direction I needed to take.  
Quickly I kicked off the break and thumbed the accelerator, peeling off onto the path. As I sped on I continued shifting gears, gaining speed to make up for lost time. Soon the pathway led into the forest, winding its way adjacent to the main road through thick green pines. The wind was even colder as I continued to gain speed, forcing me to look down slightly. After about five minutes the path took a slight turn that went along side a steep ledge that led down a large hill into the rest of the forest. Sharp rocks and fallen tree branches littered all along it. I began my turn, speeding close to the edge of the steep drop, all the while still keeping my eyes slightly down out of the wind.  
Everything was running smoothly, if I could just keep this up I might be able to make it on time.

As I completed the turn, I lifted my eyes up for a brief glance ahead to make sure the path was still clear, and right in front of me was something I never would have expected at that moment.

Less than three feet away, staring me dead in the eye, was the biggest fully antlered bull I had ever seen. (And for those of you who have never been to Canada, the bull I'm talking about is a large male moose)  
Now, instead of slamming on the breaks like a smart person would do, my first reaction was to rear back in surprise at the ten foot tall creature that had been hidden by the trees. The bull seemed to think the same thing, because when it saw me it let out a low screech and reared back on its hind legs, kicking wildly.  
"SHIT!" I shouted as I snapped out of my shock. In the split second I had before slamming into the animal, I pulled hard on the handle bars, sending the speeding quad sharply to the right. I was sent flying off the quad as both me and the machine launched off the path and down the hill of rocks and pine branches. I yelled out in pain as my body came in contact with the rough ground, cracking my back and shoulder before the extra momentum sent me rolling violently down the rest of the hill.

The rolling continued, I threw my arms out in every direction, trying to grab hold of anything that would stop my rough downhill journey. Suddenly my legs lost hold of the ground, and in the second afterwards my body was sliding over the edge of a hidden sink hole!

"NO, NO!" I screamed as I dug my fingers into the cracked earth, finally finding purchase as the rest of me went over the edge. Now I was holding on for dear life, my entire body dangling above a small hole that I had no idea how deep, with nothing but my hands above me grasping a ledge of fragile brown soil. I was covered in dirt and pine needles, some of it had even gotten into my eyes and mouth. As I spat out everything I had picked up on my way down, I glanced down at the pit I was now stuck in, and that sight made my already pounding heart rate speed up another beat.

"Oh...shit!" I stuttered to myself as I looked down.  
Sharp rocks stuck out all along the depth of the hole, with thin roots stretching across from every side like spider webs. But it was the depth of the hole that really got to me, it just kept on going until the cloudy light from the sky couldn't reach it any more; for all I knew there could be an underground cavern down there.  
My chest was pounding hard as I took in several deep lung-fulls of air, all the while looking around the hole for a way to climb out. After calming down slightly, I began trying to dig my feet into the wall of dirt in front of me, but after weeks of damp November my sneekers simply kicked off pieces of wet soil. Using my trained upper body strength, I slowly started to pull myself up, my arms taking the full brunt of my weight. I grunted angrily as my muscles strained themselves to pull me up over the ledge, my fingers clawing into the earth as I continued to move forward.

Finally I had my head and shoulders up above the ledge. From here I could see the wreckage of my quad smashed against a tree trunk a few feet away. I let out a deep breath as I stopped to take a rest, the other half of my body still dangling in the hole behind me.  
As I looked around, I glanced up to the top of the hill where I had seen the bull.

And there it stood.

He looked down at me from the exact spot that I had nearly hit him, standing tall and almost majestic. I craned my head to get a better look at him, still keeping my hands ahead of me firmly gripped into the soil.  
He was just standing there, as if contemplating if he should come down and finish me off.

"What are you thinking?" I said to myself as we continued to stare at each other. As if he heard me, the mammoth creature took a step forward, coming to the very edge of the drop that I had gone over. With one motion, it lifted its right leg and slammed its large hoof hard into the ground.

Was it just me, or did the ground shake when he did that?

I frowned in confusion as the bull turned away and vanished into the trees. Suddenly I heard a small cracking coming from the ground near me, and in the next second, the fresh earth that I had dug my fingers into became loose almost like mud. "NO!" I shouted again, clawing at the ground that was somehow no longer as solid as it had been. I grabbed hold of the ledge that had saved me, but this time it broke apart in my hands. I screamed as I fell backwards off the edge, falling down into darkness. The net of roots that covered the hole snapped apart as I crashed down through them, bringing with them large globs of dirt as they were ripped out of the tunnel walls.

_'I'm dead_.' I thought to myself seconds before I made contact with the hard rock bottom, sending my world into darkness.

**Well, well, it was the moose that did it! lol, So this will be my first chapter in a series that I hope will be enjoyable to you all, it's going to span through Mass Effect 1 and 2 and possibly 3 if I haven't finished it by the time it comes out. It will be filled with lots of mystery, suspense, action, adventure and maybe some romance. The first few chapters I have planned out, but afterwards I'm not quite sure what I'll do with the story. What I do know is that I'll be bringing in some familiar faces that will make you either say "OMG" or "what the hell", and they won't be from Mass Effect.**  
**So I hope you like this quick intro before the real action, give me your reviews and ideas for what you think should happen and I might throw it into the story.**


	2. The Find of a Lifetime

**The second chapter to my story, this is where things really start to get interesting.**

I coughed hard once I finally woke up. Pain throbbed throughout my body as I slowly began to move my legs and arms. It was almost pitch black in the area that I'd landed. With a wince and a hiss, I looked up towards the tunnel entrance high above, only to find it blackened as well.

_'How long was I out?'_ I thought groggily to myself as I continued to move.

I could feel that a large pile of dirt and snapped roots had fallen on top of me, forcing me to sit up to clear myself off. Suddenly a spike of pain ran through the back of my head. I ran a hand through my short blonde hair, feeling a large wet spot at the back.

I had already served some time in Afghanistan, and I knew when I had an injury. By now my eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, and after pulling my hand back I wasn't surprised to make out a dark liquid smeared on my fingertips. At least it wasn't life threatening, that much I could tell from the size of the wound and the amount of blood I'd lost, it was just another bump on the head.  
"Those roots must have cushioned my fall," I said out loud as I looked back up at the blackened tunnel.

The twinkling stars of a black night sky could just be made out though what could be seen of the hole.

I grunted as I tried to stand up in the cavern that had been located at the bottom of the tunnel, reaching out in an effort to steady myself.  
The walls the made up the cavern however were covered in huge clusters of long thick roots; so it was hard to actually find something solid to hang off of. Finally, after using my left hand to reach in past the damp gangly net that dangled off the walls, I felt something smooth.  
Letting out a sigh of relief, I applied my full weight to help me stand out of the dirt I was still somewhat buried in.

As I put more weight onto my hand I accidentally caused it to slip a little, making my palm slide a fraction further down the smooth rock before my fingers V'd away from each other and fell into two small holes.

But for some reason a warning bell went off in my head at that very second.

Why would there be two small, evenly spaced holes in a rock?

"Wait a minute…" I said slowly to myself, narrowing my eyes in suspicion.

I looked over at my hand, trying to make out what my fingers were holding on to, but it was still too dark for my vision. Then I remembered I still had an old cigarette lighter in my jacket that I'd found at the party the night before.  
Reaching into my right pocket, I pulled out the small metal device and flicked the cap up. I inched closer to the stone I had found, sticking my other hand through the dangling roots before flicking the igniter.  
Orange light assaulted my eyes for a brief moment before I got a clear look at what I had found.

This stone was no stone at all, my fingers were lodged into the eye sockets of a brown human skull that was sticking out of the earthy wall! (_PSYCHO_ MUSIC!)

"WHOA!" I shouted in surprise as I yanked both my hands back. I fell backwards onto the dirt pile behind me, losing the flame from my lighter in the process.  
I had seen skulls before, both in high school and in Afghanistan, but to find one here in the bottom of a hidden cavern was more then enough to give me a jolt.

After regaining myself I flicked the lighter back on, illuminating the cavern again, and brought myself back to the space in the weave of roots. The skull stared back at me, its jaw was still intact but missing a few teeth, scratches and bite marks could be made out along the forehead where small animals had begun eating the body after it had died. As I got closer to where I had been, I noticed more.  
Below the jaw, I could make out the first few vertebrae of the spine, and some parts of the shoulder protruding from the wall as well. With my free hand I began clearing away the roots around the body, ripping away parts of the wall too and exposing more bones. After about a minute, I had cleared away enough to find the entire upper half of the skeleton.  
My breathing increased and my heart began to beat faster, I had always been interested in archeology and finding lost treasures when I was a kid, but this was something I never thought I'd find.

The skeleton was in near perfect condition; it was even wearing rugged clothing that had been torn apart when rats and other animals had come to snack on it. Both arms and the chest were encased in a grey overcoat, while around the exposed ribcage were the scraps of a green and brownish dress-shirt that may have been white at some time. From the right shoulder to the skeleton's hip was a strap of some kind that was still partially buried along with its legs.

"Who were you?" I asked, really just to voice the question that was nagging me at the moment. As I gazed at the overcoat, I noticed something bulging in its left breast pocket. Tenderly reaching in, I grabbed hold of something long and slender. Slowly I pulled out the object and held it up to the lighter. Now I knew I had found something important.

I was holding a flintlock pistol, the kind that English and French colonists had brought when they first settled in North America.

On the side of the pistol was a small metal engraving, after looking more closely I was able to make out the words.

_ALEXANDRE HENRI, 1680._ My hands trembled as I looked back at the skeleton.

"What were you doing here?" I asked the skeleton. (Great, now I'm talking to dead people.)  
Speaking of that, I began looking over the chest area to see if I could find what had killed this person. Pretty soon I found my answer, half of a wooden arrow lodged in-between the skeleton's ribs.  
"Killed by Natives," I noted as I looked over more of the body. Eventually my gaze came down to the skeleton's right hand, which was clutching the other half of the arrow.

But there was something else about that hand, it was doing more then just gripping a piece of wood, it's index finger was extended.

Putting the flintlock in one of my jacket pockets, I gently lifted up the skeleton's arm to get a better look. There was something about the way it was extended, as if in his final moments Alexandre Henri tried to point at something that may have been the cause of his death. It may have been just my imagination, or my curiousity, but something compelled me to turn around and see if there was something else in this place.

"Why would they kill you for being down here?" I asked quietly to myself as I made my way over to the other side of the cavern. My lighter still had some fluid in it, illuminating the dangling roots blocking the cavern wall. I knelt down and peered in between the net of roots to see if there was anything that may have been over here. At first there appeared to be nothing, but after a few seconds of looking I noticed something different about this wall. It was only covered by the longest of roots from up above, the rest of it however had nothing attached to it. I brushed those aside and put my free hand on the bare earthy wall. To my surprise, it folded and went with my hand. The more pressure I applied, the more the wall was pushed back; it had the same complexion as dirt but folded away like cloth.

"There's something behind here." I grabbed the cloth and ripped it away from the cavern wall.

"No way!" I said in amazement. Beyond this disguised wall was a long dark tunnel, one that could easily fit someone of smaller height.  
I was 6'-3", but if I ducked low enough I could still make it through to wherever it led. Turning off my lighter, I went down on my haunches and slowly proceeded inside, feeling the walls in the dark as I continued.  
Despite my size I had no problem moving like this, having done so many times during in-field maneuvers and breaching exercises while going through my army training courses.

I continued to move for several minutes. All the while I was cautious, feeling the rock walls that had been chiseled away centuries earlier.  
"This had to have been built to lead somewhere important," I voiced my observation as I continued onward steadily. Finally I felt something different in the stone, it felt smoothed down, contrary to the rough edges I had felt along the rest of the tunnel. Reaching into my pocket, I retrieved my lighter and illuminated the tunnel to see what I had found. All around me, everything had been polished smooth, and decorated with intricate wall paintings similar to First Nation artistry I had seen in books before.

As I marveled at the beautiful scenes displayed in the ceiling above me, I looked forward and saw something in stark contrast to all of it.

Up ahead was the end of the tunnel, just a dead end, with a simple design of a faded black circle painted onto it.

This didn't make any sense, why would Native tribes come all the way down here to paint the end of a tunnel?

Still on my haunches, I walked over to the wall and pressed my free hand against it, thinking I would have the same effect I had had with the one before. But this time nothing happened, the stone wall remained firmly in place.

I let out a tired sigh of disappointment, whatever Alexandre Henri had died trying to find, it was gone now. I looked back down the way I'd came.  
"You died for nothing," I said, smacking my fist against the wall in frustration. Sitting down in defeat, I rested my head against the painted wall, gazing at the beautiful designs all around me.

But then something caught my eye.

As my lighter continued to burn, the flame began to flicker and briefly shift over to the left from time to time.  
I looked at it in confusion; the flame was flickering as if a small breeze was blowing against it. Transferring the device to my left hand, I placed my right next to it and positioned my palm so that it was facing vertically.  
Immediately the back of my hand felt cooler.

There was an airflow coming from somewhere close by.

Looking back at the wall, I reached out and placed my hand in the center of the painted circle. The flow of air was stronger here, flowing through a crack that had formed after I had smacked the wall.

I laughed slightly at my luck.  
"It may not be cloth, but it isn't the end of the road yet," I said with a toothy smile as I clicked off the lighter and repositioned myself in front of the wall. Balling my right fist, I threw a hard punch straight into the center of the ring. To my delight, I further split open the crack that I had made before.  
_'One more'_ I thought as I pulled my arm back and threw another punch with all my strength. This time it was a bit too much.

My fist drove straight through the hard clay, and the rest of my body went along with it.

"Oh crap!" I blurted out as I fell head first out of the tunnel, going over a small drop before smacking down on a flat stone floor!

I groaned into the stone as the cut on the back of my head began to hurt again. Rolling over onto my back, the first thing I saw was a glimpse of more cave paintings, but this time they were farther up than they had been in the tunnel.  
"What now?" I slowly got up, my lighter still in hand, and looked around. I had landed in a large room of some kind, allowing me to stand to my full height.  
After flicking the lighter back on, I got a faint look of my surroundings.

Tall wooden columns ran up the detailed walls, each of them connecting to a support beam that helped to hold up the roof. But there was something funny about the way it was set up; instead of Native architecture, the design of wooden structures looked almost European. Also, several waist high stone pedestals lined the walls, each with a strange groove running down the side. Walking over to the closest one, I found that it had an even larger circular groove in its center, connecting to the two long ones that ran down both sides. As I looked down, an odd smell suddenly hit me. I bent down closer to the pedestal and took a deep whiff, the smell came to me stronger this time, a smell I recognized.  
"Oil?" I said in confusion. Slowly passing my lighter over the pedestal, I could just make out the reflection of a liquid-like substance contained within the ringed groove.

Suddenly an idea hit me.

Lowering the lighter down, I gingerly pressed the flame against what remained of the ancient fluid. In an instant the oil ignited, forcing me to yank my hand back as the entire top of the pedestal roared alive with flame.

Just as I had hoped, the flame raced away from the groove in the center to go down each side of the pedestal. From there it continued on inside grooves along the floor that I hadn't noticed, racing up and igniting each pedestal down along the wall. As each one roared to life, the room came alive with more beauty than I ever would have imagined.

Large bear and deer skins hung along both walls, hundreds of Native designs crisscrossed along the ceiling, and large wooden statues of birds and wolves revealed themselves tucked away in far corners.

I had stumbled upon the find of a lifetime!

I gave a hearty laugh of astonishment as the line of fire reached the far wall up ahead and began lighting the pedestals along the other wall. I continued to gaze at all the objects I could see until the flames came full circle and the entire room had come to life with golden light, showing it to be a large rectangle instead of a square as I had previously thought.

"Ho…ly…cow…" I uttered in awe after letting out a long low whistle of impressment as I put the lighter back in my pocket, now no longer having any need for it.  
Slowly I walked down the long room, soaking up every detail that went past. Everything was visible now; down on the floor I passed by large bowls filled with rotten food, weapons, and jewelry.  
However there was something strange, just like the building structure of the wood, the offerings were a mix of both Native and European objects. Flintlock pistols, cutlasses, and many small trinkets made out of gold, along with spears, knives, and hunting bows lined the walls away from the burning grooves that connected the flaming pedestals.

There was something weirdly familiar to all of this, somehow in the back of my mind I knew that there was one crucial object missing from this arrangement that should have been here.

Looking up ahead of myself to the very back of the room, I saw what I was searching for.

A large stone slab sat squarely on a raised step platform, and on top of it was a brown bundle of cloth. Quickly I made my way over, my heart pounding with excitement.  
The sound of my sneakers echoed off the stone walls as I stepped up onto the platform, coming to stand next to the slab. The bundle of cloth became more clearly defined as I stood over it. Although the body underneath was nothing more than a skeleton, from my military training I could tell from the size of the hip bones and the shoulders that I was looking at the form of a woman. Bending over, I examined her more closely. A thin strap came around her neck, connecting to a round, stone medallion that rested on her chest. As I looked closely at it, I wasn't too surprised to find an engraving of the Fleur de Lis in its center.

"Why would both French Explorers and Native Canadians honour you?" (Yes, I'm still talking to dead people)

Gently placing my fingers underneath the medallion, I slowly flipped it over in my palm, finding a written inscription on the back. Although it was written in French I'd already been trained to be bi-lingual when I had first joined the army, making it easy to read what was left behind.

(This next part is a translation)  
_'Here lies Calia, The Stranger. An ally to both the men of France and the people of the New World._ _And also my dearest friend, you will be missed.'  
__Samuel de Champlain. December 24, 1635._

"That was the day before Champlain died!" I whispered in shock. Slowly flipping the medallion back over, I gently placed it back where I had taken it. Taking a step back, I fished out Alexandre Henri's pistol from my pocket.  
Gazing at his name for a moment, I couldn't help but give a small sneer as a sudden realization came upon me.  
"You were a grave-robber, _that's_ why the Native tribes shot you." I said to myself in disgust as I put away the flintlock. Looking back at Calia's wrappings, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of respect.

"I'm not like what he was..." Reaching over, I laid my hand on top of the medallion for a moment before turning away.

"...rest in peace."

With that I stepped down from the platform, and slowly started walking back to the hole in the wall that led to the tunnel. It was going to be a long climb once I got back to the cavern.  
(Hey! I know what you're thinking, but it felt right just to leave everything where it was)

However, I had only taken two steps from the platform when I heard something shift, and a loud jingle ring out. Something metal had hit the floor behind me.  
Slowly turning around, I saw that some of Calia's wrappings had come un-done, and a long skeletal hand was hanging out of the left side. I slowly stepped back onto the platform, and quickly noticed what had made that sound.

A silver ring lay just underneath Calia's skeletal hand, shining orange as it reflected the blaze of the nearby flame.

Stooping down, I gently picked it up and held it between my thumb and forefinger. I turned it around once and found a small black circle burned into the band, similar to the one that had been painted on the clay wall I'd broken through.

Suddenly a deep groaning noise echoed out back from within the cavern.

My reflexes kicked in that instant, forcing me to spin around with my hand on the nearest weapon, in this case Alexandre's pistol. The sound echoed out again, this time louder. Slowly I drew the pistol from my pocket; even though it was useless to actually fire it was still better than nothing.

Just then a loud animalistic roar rang out from the cavern, one that was accompanied by a great gust of wind that blew through the tunnel and swept into the tomb!

Instinctively I dropped to one knee and threw an arm in front of my face to shield it. The wind raged furiously without end until all of the burning pedestals had been snuffed out, plunging everything back into shadowy darkness.

"Well, that blows…" I remarked to myself in odd surprise after standing up with a blankly cocked eyebrow, the wind slowly dying down around me until everything had become silent once again.

But something made me do a double take.

There was a faint pale glow still lighting the tomb. Looking down into my other hand, I was shocked to see that the ring was the source of the illumination, shining out a bright silver colour from its metal skin.

I was mesmerized by it, and almost by some otherworldly force I was compelled to try it on.  
Carefully slipping the band onto the ring finger of my right hand, I turned the ring around until the black circle engraved into its surface was facing up at me.

And then in that single instant the light ceased to exist, sending me into pitch black once again.

"What! I don't get it, what is this thin…AHH!" I started in extreme confusion when suddenly a searing pain started from my finger, quickly racing throughout the rest of my body immediately after.

Immediately I grabbed the ring with my other hand, trying to rip it off. But to my sheer horror, it wouldn't budge!

Sizzling electrical currents began to flow from the band down through my arm, making thick wisps of smoke begin to rise up through the seams in my jacket's sleeve. My veins felt like they were on fire, my heart making the burning feeling shoot through me with each of its rapidly pulsating beats. I fell to one knee again, grunting and hissing in agonizing effort, the pain making my vision turn red as I continued hopelessly wrenching at my finger.

Right in front of me, an enormous portal opened up, casting a blinding silver glare into my eyes! (And yes it looked like the ones in Portal) Deafening screeching sounds came from the portal as a powerful wind began pushing from behind me, inching me closer. I shouted out in anger as I was sucked in, my world going black for the second time today.

**I'm going to end it here for now. Sooo? What do you guys think? Am I adding enough detail or explaining enough, let me know in a review and I'll try to change it if I can. I know I said in my last chapter that I would be adding action to this one, but after I finished writing it was way longer than I had thought, the next one will be loaded with action and "what the hell!" moments though. Oh and for any big history buffs that might read this, I actually tried to keep this as true as possible. The French actually were in the Thunder Bay area in 1680, and Samuel de Champlain did die on Dec 25, 1635. Whether he actually made it as deep into Canada as Thunder Bay I have no idea, I just made that part up to move along the story. So rate and review and give me any ideas for things you might want in later chapters.**


	3. What the hell!

**This chapter will finally have me in Mass Effect, I promise. But before I get there, we need to see just how powerful this ring is. (que the Lord of the Rings music) This one will be a bit longer than the others I've written, so don't get discouraged if you see it continuing on after it seems like the chapter is ending.**

Darkness continued to obscure my vision, but the intense screeching remained.  
Gradually the noises began transforming into high-pitched screams, screams that sounded like they belonged to the voices of hundreds of men both near and far away from my position.  
Soon the deafening blasts of explosions and automatic gunfire began to mix in with them.

It was a terrible chorus that I had heard many times over the last five years.

It was the sound of war.

_'Where am I?!'_ I shouted out within the walls of my mind as I desperately tried thrashing against the pitch blackness of my surroundings.

I didn't known if I was actually doing anything at all, I still couldn't feel or even see my own limbs.  
I was just a senseless entity floating in a sea of darkness.

But then suddenly as if in answer to my struggles, feeling abruptly returned to my body.  
Quickly I went through a mental checklist, immediately finding that I could move my arms and hands freely. As far as I could tell I wasn't injured in anyway, just extremely uncomfortable due to what felt like a pile of hard sharp rocks jabbing into my backside. My brain appeared to be functioning properly with no apparent side effects of whatever the hell had just happened back in Calia's tomb.

All of my senses were perceiving my new surroundings perfectly: my skin could feel a slight cool breeze blowing against my face, smoke mixed with the smell of gunpowder and a faint touch sea-salt steadily invaded my nostrils, and my hearing was still picking up the unending orchestra of screams coming from all around me.

Though for some reason my vision still remained blackened, keeping me from seeing what was going on nearby. I could also feel something heavy sprayed out across my legs, pinning everything from my knees down against the sharp rocky objects I was currently laying on.  
As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I started seeing a faint yellowish light forming before me. The light appeared to be shining through a thick collection of black dyed cloth-threads.

'_Have I been blindfolded?'_ I thought confusedly.

Reaching my hands up toward my face, I did indeed feel something soft and cloth-like covering my eyes and the top portion of my forehead. Suddenly I felt the ground tremble violently around me, another explosion detonating somewhere close by and causing dozens more male screams to echo throughout the air.  
Time was of the essence, soon one of these ominous explosions was sure to land on top of me if I didn't get away from this location. With that thought in mind I grabbed hold of the object and decided to rip it away from me completely.

Unfortunately this action left my darkness-attuned eyes exposed to a bright morning sun!

More explosions sounded out nearby as I threw up my right hand to shield my eyes from the blinding glare. Blinking rapidly while my retinas re-adjusted to the stark change in lighting, I began slowly rotating my head all around me so as to gain a full picture of my new environment.

I had somehow been transported from the underground tomb and dropped off in some kind of concrete bunker, and a badly damaged one at that. All of the bunker's walls were riddled with cracks and chippings, along with more than a few bullet holes too. At this very moment I was laying on a large pile of concrete rubble that had been blown out from the ceiling above. This had left behind a large jagged hole in the complex's roof, which in turn allowed a brilliant ray of sunlight to shine down on to me.

After taking in my surroundings I looked back at my right hand that was still shielding my eyes from the sun. I was shocked to see it had changed also.  
Instead of seeing Calia's silver ring on my finger, my entire hand was encased in a black glove. Turning my head over to my other hand, I saw the thing that had been covering my face hadn't been a blindfold. Instead it was a jet-black army officer's cap with decorative silver trimmings around its edges.

Another explosion rocked the bunker, sending dust and small chippings of ceiling falling down around me.  
Sitting up quickly so as to get off the pile of rubble I was sitting on, I nearly jerked back in shock once I finally saw the object that was weighing down on my knees.

Lying on top of my lower half was the body of a ghostly pale middle-aged man dressed in a grey military uniform, who at this moment was bleeding profusely from several bullet holes in his chest.  
Quickly fitting the cap onto my head, I leaned over and put two fingers on the man's neck. Even through leather gloves I should have been able to feel a pulse, but there was none.

Suddenly a rifle shot followed by scream sounded out from atop the bunker.  
A dark grey helmet fell down through the hole in the ceiling, clattering onto the rubble just behind me with its opening facing upward, a large spatter of blood coating its inside. I steeled my nerves so as to not think about what had just happened to the helmet's owner.

Grabbing the dead man's arm, I grunted as I used all my strength to heave and roll his dead weight off of my legs, which were clothed in black dress pants and high leather boots that came up close to my knees. Another explosion rocked the bunker and sent a large chunk of broken concrete plummeting down toward me. This forced me to quickly dive-roll off of the rubble pile, in turn causing me to land harshly underneath a WW-II MG-42 emplacement sticking out of the bunker's rectangular opening.

"What the hell is this?!" I shouted to myself over the sounds as I glanced back at the gunner's body a few feet away from me. I got up onto my haunches just as I had back in the tunnel, slowly pushing myself up and craning my neck until my eyes could look out of the opening.

When I finally got a good look at the carnage unfolding around me, I had to blink hard. Because I could not believe what I was seeing.

A vast grey ocean, partially shrouded in a light morning mist, spread out across the horizon, with hundreds of large silhouettes dotting its expanse all the way down along the coastline.  
From my knowledge of military vehicles and the shape of the objects, I could easily tell that each one was an Allied Navy Warship.

After turning my eyes to what was immediately in front of the bunker, my gaze fell upon hundreds if not thousands of miniature people storming up the wet slopes of the beach that I was currently over looking.  
Earth shaking blasts originating from the main batteries of the far away Navy ships, combined with the furious cry of unseen 88 Flak Anti-Aircraft guns entrenched at various positions along the battle-line fired out, cracking the very air in between the two armies with showers of glowing sparks and streams of acidic smoke.

Large clouds of sand and shrapnel could be seen shooting up along the beach as mortar shells were fired upon the struggling army of invading soldiers. The earsplitting buzz of multiple MG-42's was also mixed in, coming from bunkers similar to mine spaced farther down along the line on either side of me.

"_Normandy_," I said in a dreaded whisper.

I was dumbfounded. This could not be happening.

Turning away from the scene I slowly slumped down to the floor in a sitting position with my legs drawn up, leaning back against the concrete wall while my arms hung off my knees.I had been in firefights before with the Taliban but this was full on invasion, and I was on the wrong side.

And to top it all off I was in a battle that had happened almost seventy years ago!

I looked down and gazed at my black uniform, taking particular note of the silver SS rune markings sewn onto both lapels of my tunic's collar.  
Around my waist was a black belted holster that contained a polished Luger P08.  
On my left arm however was an object that I didn't care to see right now. Taking hold of the red armband, I tore it in half and held it before me.

The Nazi swastika looked more detailed than what I had ever seen in books or films before. It seemed even more colourful and menacing in real life.  
"This was meant to be a good luck charm once," I said in disgust as I tossed the symbol away. Quickly I searched through the many pockets on my tunic, the sound of battle making its way closer with every passing moment. After tearing open one of the larger ones, I frowned in confusion as I reached inside and felt something familiar.

Pulling out the object, my eyes nearly bulged out of my skull when I saw it.

It was Alexandre's flintlock!

"Wait, would that mean..." I began absently as I shoved my hand inside my pant's pocket and surprisingly grabbed hold of my weathered _ROOTS_ wallet (what can I say, its lasted me pretty long)

"Why are these still here?" I said in confusion as I looked between the pistol and my wallet.

More gunfire sounded out, this time _very_ close, followed by men screaming.  
Stuffing the pistol and wallet back in my pockets, I got up onto one knee, keeping my head down from the bunker's opening to avoid getting noticed.

Suddenly heavy footsteps could be heard storming down the stairway that led into the bunker, followed by the tell tale firing of a German MP-40.  
"Kommandant! Kommandant!" a man's voice shouted desperately as a second pair of footsteps could be heard running down the stairs. I stayed poised at the ready, facing the bunker's entrance near the pile of rubble, my hand creeping down my side to the holster and un-buckling the strap holding the Luger in place.

Right away large dark haired man ran in carrying a smoking MP-40. He was wearing a grey uniform similar to the dead man across from me. Quickly I drew the Luger, ready to train it on him. However the moment we locked eyes he quickly associated my uniform as someone in charge.

"Kommandant, Amerikaner!" the man shouted to me, pointing back to the stairway behind him right before a rifle shot rang out in the confined bunker!

The ringing in my ears caused me to cringe and grab the side of my head in pain, lowering the Luger in the process. In my disoriented state, I saw the German soldier fall face first into the floor, a smoking hole in his back.  
Standing in his place was a young American G.I holding a smoking M-1 Garand rifle, and pointing it directly at me.

"Drop it!" he shouted. This guy couldn't have been any older than twenty; I could disarm him at a moments notice if he were only a little bit closer.  
However I also recognized that despite his age he had been able to sneak up and murder a fully trained member of the Wehrmacht. That made him especially dangerous in my book.  
While I tried to maintain focus on this I was also still trying to remain propped on one knee while reeling from the shock done to my ears.  
"Wait, I know how this looks!" I began quickly, holding out my free hand to him in a show of surrender. Unfortunately this kid wasn't going to have any of it until he neutralized the threat I presented.

"Shut the fuck up, I said drop it!" he shouted again, this time training the M-1 on my head. Complying with this guy would save me a lot of trouble, but I had to make it clear that this was all a huge mistake before either one of us did something extremely stupid.  
"Alright, alright!" I complied quickly, placing the Luger on the cracked floor and sliding it away. The boy gave a smug smile as he kept the weapon pointed at me.  
"Lucky me, I get to find the only one that can speak proper English," he said as he took a step closer. This time I raised both my hands out towards him, palms open in a non-threatening gesture.

"I'm not German, I don't know..." I began again, looking the G.I directly in the eye, but he burst out with a cruel laugh.  
"Blonde hair, blue eyes, and you look a hell of a lot fitter than any Frenchman I've ever seen."  
I winced at that comment, mostly because it was true. For my entire childhood I had always been mistaken for being related to the classic 'Teutonic or Northern image.' Most times I was proud of that.  
But in a time where that was the Third Reich's golden image, trying to tell a gun wielding American soldier that your ancestors were Danish Vikings instead of German Knights was better said than done. The fact that I did have a soldier's physique and was wearing an SS officer's uniform didn't help my case either.

"I can explain..." but I was cut off again.  
"No, you can shut up and get on your knees. Both of them," ordered the G.I, briefly pointing to the ground with the barrel of his weapon before bringing it back to my head. Already being on one knee in the first place made it easy to complete that action, but it didn't keep me from opening my big mouth one more time.

"Please, just listen to me..."

That was the last straw, the G.I thrust out his right arm, sending the butt of the M-1 cracking into the left side of my head. Pain raced through my cranium, along with floating white spots clouding my vision for a moment. I jerked harshly under the blow before falling over onto my side next to the second dead German, my officer cap slipping from my head after the jarring crash.

"I told you to shut up kraut!" shouted the G.I as he pointed the weapon on my crippled form.

I grunted weakly, my hands reaching up for my head. I knew I was bleeding near my left temple, but there was more pain at the back of my head where my other cut had been. Reaching back, I massaged that painful spot for a moment before bringing my hand back. Right away I saw a small dark red blood smear on my gloved fingers, almost blending in with the fabric.

"Get up," ordered the G.I I didn't move, still looking at the blood from the cut I had received back in the cavern.

"If all of this is still here..." I said to myself, thinking back to the ring.

In answer to my thought, the searing pain I had felt in the tomb exploded from my finger, racing throughout my body once again. I writhed on the floor, pulling at my ring finger as the pain increased.  
"What the hell are you doing!" shouted the G.I, still pointing the rifle at me.  
"Get away from me!" I shouted up at him while withering in pain.

The fabric on my finger where the ring band would be began to burn away with open flame, exposing the ring which now glowed orange. Strangely the flames weren't having any effect on my finger's skin, as if the ring were protecting it from the fire's harmful effects.  
The G.I himself looked horrified by the sight. Acting only on instinct, he aimed his rifle slightly to my right and pulled the trigger.

Whatever pain I had been feeling before was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. I screamed out in anger to dull the burning sensation as I clamped my left hand over where the bullet had skinned my arm.  
Un-consciously my right hand had balled into a fist, and was unknowingly pointing the glowing orange ring up at the man who had shot me.  
The ring seemed to channel my pain, and in the next second, my entire hand from the fingers to the wrist was enveloped in sparking currents of electricity a millisecond before blasting a powerful and blinding bolt through the G.I's torso!

The bolt ripped through the man, nearly splitting him in half while blowing a meter wide hole through the bunker roof in the process, showering the three dead bodies and I in smoking concrete chippings.

The sounds of battle outside seemed to stop for a moment. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that everyone within a several mile radius had seen that sudden streak of lightning.

By now the pain in my finger had abruptly stopped, but the bullet wound on my arm still stung horribly.  
"Damn it," I said through gritted teeth, looking over at the charred smoking remains of the former G.I. lying less then a foot away from me.  
"It came from this one, move it men!" came a harsh voice from outside the bunker as Normandy's explosions and gunfire resumed. Quickly reaching over with my good arm, I grabbed hold of the Luger and stood up, trying my best to ignore the throbbing in my arm. The fabric around the ring had stopped burning; leaving me with one finger exposed as the rest of the loose fabric slipped off and fell to the floor.

My eyes darted all around the bunker, looking for another way out, but there was none. The sound of many heavy footfalls soon came thundering down the stairway.

Closing my eyes, I let out a deep disappointed breath before slowly turning around to meet my fate.

But then just before the soldiers could enter into the bunker, the ring lit up bright silver just as it had in the tomb when I was first brought here. Last time it had hurt tremendously, but this time there was nothing, not even a tingling.

And just like last time, a large silver portal opened up along the wall to my right, the screeching sounds it made following soon after!

"Get in there! Move, move, move!" came a soldier's shout from near the top of the stairs as they too heard the screeching.

It was now or never!

Thrusting the Luger back into its holster, I dashed toward the portal just as six G.I.s stormed into the bunker.  
"Stop!" I heard one of them shout over the deafening noise. I just kept on running, holding onto my bleeding arm with my other hand.  
"Take him down!" I heard the sergeant shout. I shouted at the top of my lungs as I put every last ounce of strength into my legs, diving threw the air into the swirling portal just as the gunshots came after me!

I expected darkness to take me like it had before. But this time everything remained a bright white, and the screeching was oddly silent.  
_'Did I die?'_ I thought to myself. All feeling had left my body yet again, and just like last time I still couldn't even see my own body.

Had the bullets hit me before I'd gotten through?

Not a second later I got my answer. Screaming and shouting were the first things that returned to me, but the sounds of gunfire and explosions were absent.  
The clang of metal was the new addition mixed in with The Chorus of Carnage, along with the whinnies of terrified and stampeding horses nearby.

Suddenly it all became clear.

Once again feeling was restored to my limbs, which were now heavier than they had been in the bunker. Thankfully, but oddly, the pain in my arm and near my temple was gone. The bright white that surrounded me changed into the blinding glare of a picturesque high noon sun. The first thing I noticed was that I was riding on a charging brown horse, my mouth and head covered in a large mask and helmet.

The second thing I noticed was that I was _definitely_ not in Normandy anymore!

Giant lush mountains surrounded the large green field I was riding in, with a forest of pink cherry blossoms visible in the background. All around me, fighting raged across, with fire and bodies littering the ground.

"WHOA! Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!" I shouted multiple times hysterically as I pulled back heavily on the horse's reins, forcing the animal to rear back on its hind legs and skid to an uneven stop on the mossy terrain, whinnying loudly in fright.

Whether it was thanks to the horse or myself, I couldn't tell, but one of us had noticed it just in time.

Less then a few feet in front of my ride and I was the rocky ledge of a giant cliff that descended down into a beautiful mountainous valley below. Panting heavily, the horse dropped back onto its four legs and walked around until it had a steady footing parallel to the cliff's edge, which gave me a clear view of the steep drop next to me.

I had seen this scenery before, my mind recognizing it just as easily as I had Normandy.  
Turning toward my other side and looking back at the hundreds of figures that slashed at each other with both swords and spears, I spotted many of the iconic armoured soldiers who had made this nation a super-power.

_Samurai._

"This is Feudal Japan!" I said in shock as I jerked my head in multiple directions, looking all around the battlefield.

The samurai, both on the ground and on horseback, were fighting against what looked like a well-armed mob of farmers, and they were losing.  
Arrows were being fired at random times from sharpshooters hidden within the forest of cherry blossoms, striking bulls-eye after bulls-eye on the armoured soldiers while their attention was focused on the peasants attacking them.

Quickly looking down at myself before either side could take notice of me, I examined how I had changed this time.  
My torso was covered in a black scaly chest plate, with matching greaves, gauntlets and curved shoulder plates. Letting go of the reins and reaching up to my covered face, I ripped off the mask and helmet I wore to get a better look. The iconic samurai helmet looked identical to the others further out in the battlefield, with the mask part resembling that of a lion's mouth.

Attached to my waist was a string pelt made from animal skin that held a sheathed katana against my left leg. Looking to my hands, they were still encased in black gloves, but something suddenly struck me as odd.  
The glove that covered my right hand was missing its ring finger, letting said finger on my hand be exposed along with the ring.

"Those are my SS gloves!" Throwing away the mask, I reached under my chest-plate near my collarbone, grabbing on to a piece of fabric. Quickly I pulled it up far enough for me to see, the silver SS threading on the tunic's lapel almost gleaming in the glare of the sun.  
"I'm still in my uniform!" I said, recognizing the feel of the fabric under my new armour plates, and the holstered Luger on my right leg.

Suddenly I heard a shout in Japanese, coming from a source very close to me.

Snapping my head to my left in the direction of the battle, I saw three men in simple clothing standing a few feet away from me, all of them pointing drawn bows. All I could do was sit there on my horse, waiting for who would make the first move. Finally the middle man fired. In the snap second I had before the arrow could penetrate through my head, I ducked and rolled off of the horse's saddle, barely dodging the speeding projectile and landing painfully on the hard rock next to the cliff ledge. The horse reared back again in fright before charging off, giving the three bowmen a clear shot at me once again. Still holding onto the samurai helmet in my right hand, I jumped up into a crouch, holding the top of it out in front of me.

The two other bowmen released their arrows simultaneously, aiming for my head just as their leader had.

Swinging the helmet up higher, the two arrows met with the piece of armour and penetrated through the wood and metal top, lodging together and thankfully stopping dead before they could shoot through into my face.

The force of the hit however did send me staggering backward, closer to the ledge.

"Eh! Cut me a break!" I shouted at them in anger, fighting to reestablish a firm footing on the rough rocks. This caused the three to look at each other in surprise, unable to understand my language, and give me enough time to stand up properly.  
The sight of my helmet was amusing but awkward at the same time, the tips of the arrows sticking straight into where my head would have been, while the rest of the feathered ends stuck out through the top. The middle bowman who had taken the first shot at me re-loaded, drawing the bowstring back and taking aim at my head again.

"Hey! Nooo, nonono that ain't nice!" I stated quickly, shaking the arrowed helmet at him and his weapon several times.  
Instead of answering me or pausing, the silent bowman simply closed one eye before firing his second shot. The arrow smashed into the helmet, lodging and partially splintering in-between the other two.  
The force from that shot sent me staggering back one more step, but this time the heel of my SS jackboot actually lost purchase with the ground!

Several rocks and loose dirt on the cliff's edge broke apart under my weight, skittering loudly down the rock face before tumbling over and freefalling through the air down to the lush valley nearly a thousand feet below.

I threw my arms out to the sides, trying desperately to keep from falling backwards. The bowman that had fired the shot took a step forward and bent down, picking up small but heavy looking stone. Only just barely managing to keep my balance, I took a second to look him in the eye, catching the smug expression on his face as he threw the stone up in the air and caught it in his palm as it fell back down.  
"Aw shit," I said, almost casually. I knew what was coming. After one last look and a sarcastic parting smile, he flung the stone directly at me.

The hard object clanged off my chest-plate, the force of it causing me to lose all the air in my lungs and cringe inward instinctively, sending me straight over the edge!

"AHHHH!" I screamed as I flipped end over end uncontrollably in my downward journey along the cliff face. As my arms flapped frantically through the raging wind whipping about my body, the ring suddenly glared bright silver again.  
Several hundred feet below my rapidly falling form, another portal opened up, this time horizontally in mid air.  
Knowing that this was my only chance to come away from this alive, I flipped myself around while continuing to zip past sharp rock outcroppings, spreading my limbs open like a skydiver while also directing my body so as to align with the portal.

"Yes, come on, come on!" I said to myself, my heart pounding as I closed the distance between the swirling gateway and myself. But this time, like my injures and current attire, even the portal had changed.  
Instead of bright solid silver shining outward, I could actually make out details through the opening. I was looking at the rooves of two opposing buildings, several outward advertisement billboards, and a dark container of some kind.

I was looking at an overhead view of an alleyway, and was falling headfirst straight down into it!

"NO! nonononono!" I screamed, flailing my arms and legs hopelessly in any direction as I fell directly into the portal.

But instead of passing seamlessly through, my fall abruptly slowed down for a brief moment before I completely crossed over to this new world.  
"Dammit!" I shouted as my fall suddenly sped back up to normal time. (Spoke too soon!)

"AH! I yelled as I smacked into the ledge of the closest roof, sending my spinning sideways past the wall of he building. Luckily that hit was only a scrape and didn't cause any lasting damage; unluckily I just kept on going.  
"UGH!" as I smashed into one of the flickering billboards before finally crashing onto the rectangular object connected to one of the alley walls.

Sparks and smoke rose up around my aching form. I had landed on my back, cracking a 'me' sized indent into whatever machine I had destroyed.

I groaned in pain, my armour had taken the brunt of the blows, but I still felt like I had been shaken up in a sardine can. The smell of garbage floated up from the cracks in the metal, I had landed on some kind of disposal unit. Looking up at the dark gray sky, I could still see the open portal, displaying a clear view of Japan's blue sky, and two objects dive-bombing towards me.

"AHHH!" I shouted as my adrenaline skyrocketed farther than it had been as I recognized what they were. Scrambling out of the way and accidentally tumbling sideways off of the machine in the process, I managed to catch a glimpse of my katana and arrowed helmet passing through the portal before it vanished from the sky.  
They both came smashing down in sequence onto where I had been a moment ago.

The katana stabbed straight into the machine, standing up like a stick in the mud and shooting up a cascade of sparks from the machine's inner circuits, with the helmet landing perfectly on top of the hilt.

Even with my shot adrenaline and hyperactive heartbeat wracking my system, I could only lazily lay back on the alley floor and chuckle loudly at the sight of the helmet briefly spinning on the hilt from the force of its recent fall.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" came an aged voice from another alley around the corner.

This time I would not be caught un-prepared. Standing up and drawing my Luger, I pointed it in the direction of the voice just as an older looking, bearded man, dressed in tattered clothing came around the corner.

He nearly walked right into the barrel of the pistol, clearly not expecting a weapon pointed in his face. In an instant his hands shot up into the air as he recognized it.  
"Where am I?" I asked, as gently as I could despite my still racing heartbeat. The man looked at me as if I was insane.

"You sure you don't know where you are?" asked the man in a tone that suggested it was widely common knowledge to know where I was.

I bared my teeth in frustration,  
"I wouldn't be asking if I knew, now would I? Could you do me a favour and answer the quest..." the sudden silver shine of the ring illuminated the dark alleyway, interrupting my demand and causing both of us to jump.  
"Oh come on! What now?" I said angrily as I pulled away my right hand, which was holding the Luger, to get a better look at the ring.

As I was distracted by it, the old man slowly inched back into the alley he had just come from before booking it out of my line of sight.

"No wait! Dammit!" I shouted after him, cursing once I realized he was long gone. Shoving the Luger back into its holster, I turned back to the katana and helmet. Taking the arrow filled head gear off the hilt, I grasped the sword hard and yanked it out of the metal, causing a few more lingering sparks to shoot up.  
"This thing is really getting annoying," I said in an irritated tone as I glanced back down at the ring after forcefully sliding the sword into its sheath.

I really looked like an adventurer now, wearing a burned and bullet torn SS uniform underneath dented samurai armour, with a glove that was missing a finger. All of this with a katana, a Luger, a flintlock pistol (which was still in my pocket) and a ROOTS wallet.

Just then however, after the ring had stopped glowing, I heard a yell of pain in the alley the old man had run down. Turning back to it, I drew the Luger out again.

Suddenly the said old man was thrown back out into my alley, hitting the wall behind him and crumbling to the ground. I was just about to run over and see if he was hurt when his attacker stormed out of the other alley.

At the sight of this man, I knew what the ring had just done, but still couldn't believe it with my own eyes.

Looming menacingly over the old man who had pulled himself into a leaning position against the wall, this new figure wore silver armour plates efficiently spaced over a black and purple/blue flight-suit, with a familiar jet pack strapped to his back. The man had two silver pistol weapons sitting in holsters strapped to each leg, with a brown belt full of pouches encircling his waist.

However, it was the helmet that really gave him away, allowing me to recognize the father of a certain galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter standing in the flesh.

"_Jango Fett?_" I whispered, too stunned to move. Now I knew I had to be dreaming.

With his back turned to me, Fett reached forward and wrapped his large gloved fingers around the old man's neck. Using his Mandalorian strength, the bounty hunter easily lifted him off his feet with one hand alone.  
"Where the hell am I?" he ordered, the New Zealand accent of the man who had played him in the movies coming out clearly through his helmet. The homeless man simply dangled above the ground, choking incoherent words, desperately trying to pry Fett's steal grip away from his throat.

I was a soldier, sworn to defend the defenseless, I couldn't just let this man die in front of me.

Pointing the Luger at Fett's back with both hands, I spoke out loud.  
"Let that man go Jango."

The bounty hunter seemed to stiffen at the sudden mention of his name, relaxing his hand and dropping the old man to the ground. After watching his victim crawl away, he turned to face me. For a moment he appeared surprised, with a slight cock to his covered head, as if confused by my appearance as much as I was by his. Finally he spoke.  
"How do you know my name?" he asked in a flat, emotionless tone.

"Let's just say that I know a _lot_ about you and your life," I answered stiffly, keeping my weapon steady. The bounty hunter was silent for another moment, as if calculating the odds.  
"Have you ever killed a man before?" he asked, this time with a slight goad to his voice. I could tell by the way this was going that he was trying to bait me into doing something stupid.

What he didn't know however was that I was prepared for something like that, having already had a few tough experiences of my own in my life.

Cocking back the hammer with my right thumb, I answered coldly.

"Yes, I have."

This seemed to change Fett's attitude, he slightly lowered his arms, inching his hands closer to either of the silver blaster pistols holstered on his thighs.

Now he considered me a threat.

But suddenly, before either of us could do anything, a green energy blast whizzed past Fett's helmet!

Quickly drawing one of his pistols, both he and I turned our weapons onto a group of creatures firing on us from the end of the alleyway.

Several more sizzling blasts flashed past us, forcing me to throw myself down behind the destroyed garbage unit while Fett began firing his own barrage back at the enemy.

The entire corridor immediately became lit up with green and red flashes as the combatants traded fire!

Briefly peaking my eyes over the top of the disposal unit, I was able to get a good look at the attackers.  
There were five of them in total, carrying large brown rifles of some kind. They wore black leather armour and large steel-toed boots. They all looked human but were structurally larger then most, with bronze coloured skin and long dark hair.

However out of all of that it was the large branching ridges on their wide foreheads that really gave them away.

What else had this ring brought here!

"For Kahlass!" shouted the largest of the group as they all charged the bounty hunter together, firing their weapons as they did.

(I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell any Star Trek fans who these guys are)

Activating his jet pack, Jango blasted up from the ground and soared backwards out of the alley, firing both of his pistols down at the Klingons. One of them was caught in the chest, killing him instantly and causing him to fall dead right across from my hiding place while the rest charged past me after their flying enemy.

Quickly taking this unexpected opportunity, I grabbed my helmet and stepped over the dead Klingon before sprinting into the alleyway that the old man had taken before his little run-in with the Mandalorian.

As I ran down it, I passed by a large flat-screen interface built into one of the walls that was displaying something oddly familiar.  
Skidding to a stop and coming back to it, I gawked once I realized where the ring had brought me to this time.

It was a massive space station in the middle of a swirling purple Nebula cloud, a station made up of five long gargantuan arms connected to a large circle fixed at the center.

"It can't be...I'm on the..." I began before the repulsors of a large flying military vehicle sounded out. I shot my head up just in time to see the said craft float over the top of the alleyway I was in for a brief moment before continuing out of sight, all while it's pilot's voice echoed out across the area on a loudspeaker.

_"All units! We have an immediate emergency in the vicinity! All civilians evacuate Ward-D!" _

Suddenly, the sounds of intense fighting and shouting filled the streets nearby. I turned my gaze back to the large screen, which was now showing a deep red haze flashing around a small section on one of the displayed station arms.

"...the Citadel." I finished ominously before turning and vanishing down the alley.

**TADDAA! We've finally made it. So? Are you guys saying "what the hell!" yet. It may not be much right now, but believe me, this is just to whet your appetites. There is a LOT more from where this came from. Now, this chapter was a bit serious but also a bit funny, I'm trying to write this story like a Pirates of the Caribbean adventure. So there will be a lot of serious moments, but I'll try to add comedic escapes and funny moments in between. From here we'll see some scenes that might feel familiar because you might have seen then in a movie somewhere.** **So yeah, this is the start of the adventure into the Mass Effect universe, where Axel will be involved in Shepard's quest to stop Saren, but it won't be exactly from the point of view that you might be thinking. Rate and review and give me ideas for who you want me to bring in next. **


	4. We'll need a ship and a crew

**I am so sorry for the long time it took me to make this, I've been busy with school and stuff, just life in general. And the fact that this is the longest chapter I have to date.** **But now that we're back, the mind mushing has only just begun. Prepare for more suspenseful, somewhat funny, and WTF! moments.**

Klaxon alarms began to sound throughout the area as I continued running. I must have been in the slums part of Ward-D, everything was broken and dirty. This image was what had kept me from recognizing the Citadel before, when I had first landed. But as I sprinted down the alleyways, everything began to become more familiar, beginning to look more like the clean ceilinged hallways I had seen in the Mass Effect game.

I whipping past the sounds of blaster and C-Sec weapons fire as the Ward's security began to confront the new beings the ring had brought here.  
_"Unknown hostile organic life forms have spread to 80% of Ward-D, elite Citadel Security Forces are being deployed in rapid response. All civilian residents, please head to your nearest emergency exits,"_ came the feminine voice of a familiar V.I. all throughout the Ward. Skidding to a stop in the middle of one of the shinier corridors, I looked over to the wall left of me that held many advertisement screens along its length.  
"Avina?" I called out, panting slightly. Suddenly all of the screens along the wall I was facing blacked out for a moment, before being replaced by the face of the violet Asari holo-projection.

"Whoa," I said in surprise at the dozens of identical faces staring at me.  
_"This unit is programed to respond to the name 'Avina', how may I assist you?"_ asked the V.I. in her polite, somewhat cheery tone. I looked down at my appearance for a second, apparently the V.I. didn't find what I had on my person as odd.  
"Uhh...Citadel V.I., what is today's date?" I asked, trying to at least sound like I was from around there. Avina was quiet for a moment. Then I remembered I had to specify.  
"Oh! In Earth Standard Time...please," I threw in hastily, the sounds of fighting still present in the background. Avina's eye's glowed for a moment, as if processing my request. Finally she spoke.

_"The Earth Standard Date of the Systems Alliance is currently August 7, 2183 AD."_

"That's the right year, but is it the right day?" I said to myself. Suddenly an idea hit me.

"Avina, has the colony of Eden Prime suffered any kind of damage lately? Or say..." I shrugged innocently for a moment, "...an attack."

It must have been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw the V.I's few facial features tighten in suspicion after I said that.

_"Communication with the human colony of Eden Prime has been temporarily disrupted for the last fourteen hours, due to unknown circumstances. Military information on colonial defense, however, is restricted to authorized personnel only."_

I smiled slyly, that was all the information I needed.

Just then a pistol shot sounded out at the end of the hallway. I spun around in a flash, my right hand on the Luger, and my left holding the arrow skewered helmet above my head like a club. Down at the far end of the corridor were two figures fighting tooth and nail. One of them was another Klingon, holding a long serrated dagger above his head. The other was a large Turian of about the same height. I could tell he was C-Sec by the blue armour he wore and the Kessler pistol held in his right hand. At the moment however neither of the two could use their weapons to gain an advantage. Both were pressed nearly head to head, the Klingon grasping the Turian's wrist that held the pistol, while the Turian grasped the Klingon's that held the dagger.

"Thanks Avina, you're a lifesaver!" I said quickly, turning and sprinting in the opposite direction as two more Klingons and Turians came wrestling into view, smashing each other into the screens that lined the walls or striking their opponents madly with closed fists and wild kicks. That entire end of the corridor had turned into a brawler's pit.

Despite being in the middle of yet another war zone, I now had my bearings. It was the year the Mass Effect storyline began, and I knew already that Eden Prime had been hit at least fourteen hours ago, which meant that a knocked out Commander Shepard would be here very shortly. Whether this universe's Shepard was male or female didn't make any difference to me, I had to stay as far out of the game's timeline as possible to keep from getting involved.

I was already in way over my head as it was, and I only just got here!

After running down a few more meters I turned left, diving out of sight into another smaller alleyway that seemed to connect to a large corridor running parallel to the one I had just left. But what was standing at the end of this tight alley caused me to stop in my tracks.

Up ahead, with his back turned to me, was an Imperial Stormtrooper (as in _THE_ Imperial Stormtroopers). The white and black armour he wore looked just as plastic-like as it had in the movies, but the weapon he held was by no means a toy prop. At the moment he was speaking in his radio filtered voice to something on the floor of the corridor, just out of my view.

_"For the last time, where the hell are we?"_ demanded the Stormtrooper, pointing his blaster rifle at whoever he was threatening. I slowly crept forward, keeping close to the walls to remain hidden within the alley's dark shadows. All the while as I moved I tried to make as little noise as possible in the loud SS jackboots I was still wearing from my time in Normandy.

Just then the Stormtrooper's victim responded.

"P-Please...I'm telling you the truth! You're on the Citadel, in the Serpent Nebula!" came the frightened voice of a young blonde woman who was kneeling before the armoured man, her right hand holding on to her opposite arm as if she were hurt. In anger the trooper reached down and grabbed her by the collar of her blue form-fitting dress that I had seen most women wearing in Mass Effect 1. After dropping his rifle he used the back of his gloved and plated fist to backhand her across the face, causing her to fall back to the floor with a cry of pain.  
_"Don't_ s_crew with me bitch! There's no such place!" _heshouted angrily, stooping down and picking up his weapon as the woman quietly cried on the floor in front of him.

The sight of that made my blood boil, this man was no soldier, he was a bully!  
"No wonder the Rebels hated you guys," I uttered quietly as I reached down for my Luger, fully prepared to draw it and shoot this asshole through the side. But then my hand abruptly froze above the weapon as I remembered back to the bunker in Normandy. The shot from the G.I's weapon had nearly deafened me then in such an enclosed area; in this alleyway, which was an even smaller space then the bunker had been, firing my gun would not only disorient me but could also make me miss in the process, throwing away my one shot.  
Luckily however I had another option, a bit more brutal, but quiet.

Silently I placed the helmet on the floor. Reaching across to my left side all while keeping my gaze on the trooper, my gloved right hand gripped the hilt of my katana. My exposed ring finger could feel the wrapped fabric on the hilt shift slightly as I slowly drew the blade, careful not to let it ring too loudly from the sheath. Raising it over my head in a striking pose, I inched forward the last few feet between him and me.

"Please, let me go!" the woman begged, slowly picking herself up from the floor, her hand pulling away from her arm to reveal a small tear in her sleeve which was partially covered by a small amount of blood coming from a bruised scratch. The Stormtrooper returned his full attention back to her, pressing a button on his weapon.  
_"I've had it with you," _he spat coldly, pointing the weapon down to her head just like the G.I had done to me. She whimpered and tried crab-walking away from him, tears streaming down her face. By then I had just side-stepped into the corridor behind the trooper and was now stealthily moving within reach of his backside, the blade of my sword raised over me in a classic samurai style attack-pose.

But then the situation took an unexpected turn. Hoping to use the katana to knock his blaster out of his hand, I had taken a step to the left to be more on the trooper's side. Unfortunately it hadn't occurred to me that this now exposed me to an emotionally terrified victim whose life was being threatened at this very moment. Freezing with fear as the Stormtrooper took a final menacing step toward her, the woman used every last ounce of rational thought she had left to turn her head toward _me_, her glistening eyes widening as she took in my bizarre appearance and gleaming samurai sword raised high in the air.

The moment her gaze settled on me she let out a bloodcurdling scream, raising a hand to shield her face before turning away, no longer able to handle what was happening to her!

"Shit!" I cursed out loud, my body going rigid with surprise at her reaction. The Stormtrooper spun around, alerted to my presence, swinging his weapon wide in order to bring it up to his chest and fire. With all my strength, I swiped the katana down hard onto his blaster rifle, slicing the weapon in half. Within the same second I swung the bottom of the sword's hilt back up in a graceful arc and smashed it across the side of his head.

"UGH!" he shouted out as he staggered backwards, holding onto his head as he reeled from the blow, dropping the smoking remains of his weapon. Taking advantage of his disoriented state, I balled my left fist and smashed a punch straight into his helmeted face. The force of the blow caught him off balance, sending his feet up into the air and his back cracking into the floor, as if he had just been clotheslined.

That effectively shut him up, his body going limp sprayed out across the floor the moment he hit the ground.  
After seeing that my blow had knocked him senseless I decided to let out the burning sensation in my fist that I had been suppressing with all my willpower.  
"OOWW! I yelled out loudly as I shook my hand back and forth to relieve the pain. Even the cushioning from my gloves hadn't been able to soften the startling hardness of his armour.  
"That is _definitely_ not plastic!" I said through clenched teeth, looking down at the trooper as I sheathed the katana and messaged my wrist.  
Behind me the woman slowly continued to crawl backwards, her mouth slightly dropped as she stared at me. Turning around to see if I could help her, she recoiled in fear once again at the sight of my front.

"Who are you?" she asked timidly, still moving backwards slowly. Raising my hands out in front of me like I had done with the G.I., I slowly stepped towards her.

"My name is Axel, I'm not going to hurt you," I said in a reassuring voice, trying my best to get this bruised woman to calm down. Looking at my raised hands, her gaze soon focused on my exposed ring finger. Her brow frowned slightly in confusion at the sight of me wearing a glove with a missing finger on it. I laughed slightly, giving a smile to help alleviate her fears.

"Believe me, its a long story."

However instead of relaxing, she seemed to grow more tense.  
"I'll bet, you're one of them aren't you?" she said quickly, her eyes flicking over to the Imperial lying in front of her. This caused me to stop in mid-step; she had been able to figure me out pretty quickly. There was no real point in lying to her if she could already guess what I was.

"Yes...I'm not from around here, but trust me I'm not like these other creatures," I said, inclining my head down to the unconscious Stormtrooper beside me. This made the woman stop moving away from me, a new look of relief mixed with suspicion crossed her face.

Suddenly more echoes of blaster fire and fighting could be heard farther down the corridor ahead of me, erupting with a chorus of yells and shouts.

Walking directly over to her, I offered my hand.  
"We can't stay here, if you come with me I can protect you until we get out of this Ward, after that you can go where ever you like." She hesitated, looking up at my hand for a moment before finally accepting it. Easily I pulled her up to her feet before heading back into the small alleyway to retrieve my helmet. Once I re-entered the corridor she gave me a lifted eyebrow after seeing the three arrows sticking through the top.

"Another long story?" she asked with a small smile of her own. I laughed a little.  
"You could say that." Suddenly the sound of heavy running feet could be heard. Before I could do anything, ten C-Sec agents in full blue battle armour stormed around the corner. Four of them were Turians, one was an Asari, with the other five being humans. All of them had combat helmets on and held assault rifles at the ready.

"Hold it right there!" shouted the leader of the group, who surprisingly was an older human. The fact that he was human instead of Turian wasn't what surprised me, it was the voice that I was able to recognize.  
"_Captain Bailey_?" I blurted out in surprise, remembering the C-Sec officer's voice from Mass Effect 2. The other members of the squad looked at Bailey in confusion, while he stared hard at me, his rifle unwavering.

'_Shit_.'

"Sandra, get away from that man," ordered Bailey to the woman I had saved. She looked between me and him for a moment, trying to decide, before slowly moving away from me. She continued until she was behind the wall of agents. All of them kept their weapons trained on me now.

"I'm a _lieutenant_ sir, and you've just landed yourself in a hell of trouble," the old officer growled at me, inching closer.

Suddenly Sandra broke out from behind the other agents, pushing herself right next to Bailey. "Armando! This man saved my life from that thing over there," she said defiantly, pointing over to the still passed out Stormtrooper laying on the ground next to me. (Man, that was one hell of a punch I'd thrown)

Bailey glanced at her for a moment. "This entire Ward is in lockdown to stop those things from escaping, and he's one of them." Sandra placed a hand on the top of Bailey's rifle. "But he isn't like the others, maybe he can help," she insisted.

While the two continued to debate wether to shoot me or arrest me, I still just stood there, watching the rest of the agents keep there weapons leveled at me. The fighting I had heard earlier was even louder by where I was, the agents seemingly too far away to hear. Turning slightly to my right, I was able to crane my neck to see over my shoulder down the corridor. At first there was nothing, but soon the source of the chaos became clear. Two C-Sec agents, a Turian and a human suddenly came into view, running at top speed down the corridor towards me. Both of them looked terrified, each having dark scortch marks on their armour. Behind them came a group of about eleven to twelve Stormtroopers.

Bailey and the rest noticed the new threat right away, pushing Sandra behind them again as they lined up. Two of the Stormtroopers opened fire, each blast catching one of the retreating agents in the back. As the agents fell dead to the floor, the troopers quickly made their own line, keeping their weapons pointed at Bailey's team on the other side of the alleyway.

"Oh shit!" I said, quickly looked back and forth, my hand firmly gripping the handle on the Luger. This was not good, I was standing right in the middle of a perfect cross fire, between two enemies hell bent on killing each other.

"C-Sec! Drop your weapons!" Shouted Bailey. The Stormtroopers only changed the settings on their blasters to full power.  
_"Drop _your_ weapons!"_ Shouted the commander of the squad. The Stormtrooper next to me suddenly let out a groan, moving his hands towards his head.

"Son of a..."

Not wanting to bother with him right now, I delivered a sharp kick to his helmet with the heel of my boot, sending him back to sleep. Looking around the alley, I quickly tried to spot an exit, somewhere I could escape to and fast. "Thank God!" I said in relief once I saw it, a small doorway built into the wall between two flashing advertisement screens. Unfortunately that relief was to be short lived.

"Open fire!" I heard the Storm commander's voice shout. Both the Stormtroopers and Bailey's agents opened up, lacing the area with red and blue blasts. "WHOA!" I shouted, throwing the helmet forward as I dived for the floor just before the blasts could slice me in half. The Stormtroopers and Bailey's men were getting cut down by the second, forcing them to fan out and find cover.

I crawled towards the door on my front, grabbing the helmet again along the way as blasts continued to criss-cross over my head. I looked over to see Sandra kneeling behind Bailey, both of them pinned down behind a waste unit similar to the one I had landed on. The Asari in the group began to glow with a cloudy blue aura surrounding her body. Using her Biotics, she ripped one of the large screens from it's wall and hurled it at the Imperials. The screen shattered into a million pieces as it smashed into one of them, sending shards and sparks slicing into two more. Another Turian and one of the human agents were picked off, both from the Storm Commander as his men continued to give him cover.

"Axel!" I heard Sandra shout over the blasts. I had just reached my hand up to the flashing red console next to the door, at my touch it turned green and slid open. Turning my head back I saw her looking desperately at me, pointing in the direction of the Stormtroopers. Still keeping myself on my stomach, I looked back at the Imperials. There were still about six of them, including the Storm Commander, who was marked with an orange shoulder pad. But it wasn't them that she was pointing at, it was a line of piping that ran along the ceiling, which at the moment contained an odd glowing fluid.

Turning on to my side, I drew the Luger and pointed it down at the glowing line. Cocking back the hammer, I closed one eye and squeezed the trigger. The loud crack from the weapon seemed to make eveyone pause for a moment. The bullet pinged off of the piping, puncturing a nicely sized hole in the center, making the glowing fluid spray down all over the Commander and a few other troopers standing underneath it. The Stormtroopers seemed stunned for a moment as they looked at both the piping and each other.

Apparently this was the opportunity Bailey needed, as he bolted up from his position, aiming his rifle straight at the Commander. He shot off a single round that struck the Imperial in the chest, setting him and any nearby fluid ablaze with raging blue and green flame. The Commander and any other troopers covered in the stuff screamed and fell to the ground as the flame seeped through their armour.

Now this was _my_ opportunity. Holstering the smoking Luger, I snatched up the samurai helmet and bolted forward through the open doorway. At the moment Bailey was distracted by the sight of the burning Stormtroopers, but as soon as he saw me move, he turned his rifle on me again. "_Stop_!" he shouted as I turned back. With one motion I snapped my left hand forward, slamming my palm into the green console next to me. It flicked red and the door began to slide shut in front of me, cutting in-between the two of us.

Bailey squeezed the trigger, but at that exact moment Sandra grabbed the rifle and shoved it upward, sending the shot into the ceiling. I smiled thankfully at her just before the door shut in front of me. Using the point of my elbow, I smashed the centre of the console, causing it to spark and stutter, permanently locking the door to keep Bailey from following.

"_Now_ where am I?" I said as I turned around, looking around the new room I was in. It looked to be some kind of store room, lit up in certain sections by dark yellow lights hanging overhead. Large metal crates lined the walls, stacked one above the other. Each had a locking mechanism with a key pad and display screen.

"Let's see what we got," I said as I crossed over to one of the crates. Setting the helmet down next to it, I used my index finger and tapped the large button on the key pad. The screen went red with a short buzz. I frowned at this and went to grab the helmet again. However, the ring suddenly light up silver. Quickly I drew the katana, ready for what ever the ring was calling this time. But instead of monsters or movie characters, the light on the crate's screen turned green. The door on the front of it separated down the middle, pulling away to reveal its contents. The ring's light faded away again as I looked inside. Folded neatly on lit shelves were dark clothes in plasic bags, obviously meant for shipping to a store of some kind. Also inside were bundles of large brown sacks, probably meant for military gear.

"Finally I can get out of this," I said gladly as I sheathed and unstrapped the katana. I did the same to the Luger before removing the armour and SS uniform underneath it. Grabbing hold of a few bags, I tore them open to find a black T-shirt with matching cargo pants. I felt much better finally being able to take off the samurai armour, it had been heavier than I would have thought, especially when strapped over top of a full black uniform meant for European conditions. After getting dressed, I put the jackboots back on along with the gloves and samurai gauntlets. Then I searched through the SS tunic, finding Alexandre Henri's flintlock pistol still in its pocket, along with my ROOTS wallet. I re-strapped the Luger holster around my waist, sliding the flintlock in between the belt and my left side, while fastening the strap for the katana around my torso. With the sword secure on my back, I grabbed one of the sacks, putting the remaining armour pieces inside, including the helmet, before folding and placing the SS uniform in as well. After tightening the sack closed, I took my ROOTS wallet and placed it in my right pocket.

I felt like a chameleon, having changed from simple jeans and a jacket to a uniform and armour. Now I was in a T-shirt with cargo pants, jackboots, gloves with a missing finger on one, and samurai gauntlets.

"I was late for work...I was only late for work!" I said angrily as I stormed over to the far wall, leaving the sack behind until I found another exit. Suddenly a loud clang echoed throughout the room. With my left hand I drew the katana from behind me, and with my right I drew the Luger.

A chuckle sounded out, almost as if comming from the very walls. "You're not one to run from a fight," said a voice, a very familiar voice. Keeping the pistol and sword ready, I slowly krept back towards the sack, looking all around.

"Who are you?"

Another clang echoed out, this time closer. "Are you saying you don't recognise me?" said the voice amusingly. That made me stop, I_ did_ recognise that voice, but it couldn't be who I thought it was!

"I'm right here," it said, directly behind me. Freezing in place, I tightened my grip on the hilt.

In the blink of an eye I spun around, bringing the sword swiping through the air. The figure that was standing behind me didn't even move, the sword passing through him as if he weren't there. My eyes widened as I got a good look at who the voice belonged to.

It was me! An exact look alike stood in front of me, dressed in the SS uniform and armour I had just had on.

He chuckled again as he folded his arms and leaned back against the crates. Every detail about this duplicate was exact. The eyes, the hair, even the scratch and bullet marks along the armour and uniform he wore. "_That_ was impressive," he said with an amused smile. I took a step back, dumbfounded. Raising the Luger, I pointed it at his head. But he simply laughed and shook it.

"I don't think you want to do that." I stood there, my heart hammering as I tried to wrap this around my head. Finally I lowered the pistol, but stayed at the ready in case this thing did something. "What are you?" I managed to blurt out, taking another step back. My clone stepped away from the crates, his face taking on a more serious look. "I'm..." he paused for a moment, looking slightly un-comfortable. "I am a guardian of the ring, I was sent as a guide to help you master your powers," he said, looking me dead in the eye. Now I was really dumbfounded, I was stuck in a different universe with powers I had no idea how to use, and was now talking to another version of myself.

"_No_!" I finally said angrily. This caught my double by surprise, making him frown in confusion. "This can't be real, I can't just fall down a hole and then start leaping through different dimensions, especially ones based off of video games!" I shouted at him, putting away my weapons before turning around to find another way out. But as I turned around, I nearly ran straight into _another_ version of myself!

This one was dressed in my old clothes, the jeans, sneakers and leather jacket I had been wearing back in Calia's tomb. This one looked hard at me, trying to convey what the one behind me was saying. "This is real, you've been given a great gift," said the new clone, pointing to my right hand. Suddenly a clicking sound echoed nearby, like the sound of boot heels hitting the floor.

I turned away from my second duplicate to see a third version of me step out from the darkness. This one was dressed in just the SS uniform when I had first landed in Normandy. His had no bullet marks however, and still had the Nazi swastika around his left arm; he was also still wearing the black and silver officer's cap I had lost.

"If you don't learn to control the ring now, what is happening here will be nothing compared to what you will release later on," said the third one, stretching his hands out all around him. I noticed then that the glove on his right hand wasn't missing a finger. I just couldn't grasp this, I was talking to myself, literally!

"That's it!" I suddenly said after rubbing the bridge of my nose. The three looked at me expectantly. "I'm dreaming! I'm still down in that hole, I just have a concussion from that fall," I said, reaching behind me to feel the back of my head. But as my fingers went through my hair, they felt the swollen cut still there, and as soon as I touched it it felt just as painful as ever.

Just then I felt a heavy weight on my shoulder. Spinning around, I wasn't surprised to see a fourth version of myself, except this one was clothed in the same attire as me. (Damn it was getting crowded in there) With his four fingered gloved hand on my shoulder, the newest of the group spoke.

"We're here to help you Axel, that ring you have is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, you _must_ learn to control it." I backed away from him, surrounded on all sides by the four clones. "Okay, either I'm crazy, or this was all a huge mistake," I said, looking at each of them.

"We_ know_," the first clone laughed slightly.

"Ever since the ring was created, it was always passed down from the bearer to an apprentice, but..." began the second clone. I looked at him, growing more tense by the minute. "But what? Why didn't Calia pass on the ring before she died?"

The third clone took on a more solomn tone. "But as the centuries passed, the ring began to take on a mind of its own. Soon the apprentices were no longer worthy, each one used the ring for their own gains." I turned to him as he continued. "Eventually the ring itself began to choose new bearers."

The fourth clone came up behind me. "When Calia became a bearer, the ring felt content to stay with her forever." I turned around to him, a look of deep confusion on my face. "You are the second bearer since its creation to gain it through its original passage," he finished, inclining his head down to the ring.

I shook my head. This was overwhelming. "What do you mean its _original_ passage?" I asked.

"When the ring was given to its first bearer, the creator placed an enchantment on it. It stated that if the ring was not passed down willingly from its bearer, the only way to get it would be for someone to find it, but not want it."

As the clone finished, I couldn't help but want to facepalm myself hard. If I hadn't followed Alexandre's finger, I never would have found that damn tomb. One of the most powerful beings in the universe, and I had found it, but not wanted it. I took a mental check of my options, and they all didn't look good. I might as well co-operate, if these guys could help me I might be able to find a way home.

I sighed in defeat. "Fine, why is all of this happening?" All four seemed to brighten up at that, right before the last three vanished in a swirl of gray smoke. The first clone that I had run in to, wearing the uniform and armour, laughed at my stunned expression as he came up and clapped me on the shoulder.

"It was all _me_!" he said through his chuckles, before clearing his throat and continuing. "The ring is confused, its been asleep in that tomb for over four hundred years. When you put it on, it was forced to wake up, having no idea who you were or what was to be expected of it," said the clone as I bent down and slung the sack of armour and clothes onto my back. I looked down at the ring, giving it a half hearted tug just in case it might come off this time.

"I tried getting it off when I first put it on, why won't it work?" I asked as we both walked over to a space of bare wall in the lines of crates. The clone stopped and gave a small shrug.

"The ring has now become grafted to your body, non of the previous bearers ever tried to take it off because they knew of this before hand," he said casually. I looked at him as if he were insane.

"WHAT! I never wanted this thing, if its scared of me I'll gladly take it off and put it back!" I shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders. Instead he instantly shrugged me off and grabbed me by the collar, no longer the casual joker he had been before.

"You are the _Ring Bearer_! That thing is now a part of you, like it or not. Its gifts are now your gifts, its troubles are your troubles!" He let me go gently, but continued to stare sternly at me. He was right, I had to stop trying to fight this and start working with it.

"I'm sorry," I said finally. Surprisingly he seemed to soften up after that, reverting to his old self. "No worries mate," he said with a smile, clapping me on the shoulder again. "I know how hard this must be, which is why I've been sent here, we're gonna go on this journey together," he said, smiling again.

Turning to the wall, he continued. "The first thing we''ve gotta do, however, is get out of this room," he said with a slight uncertainty, pointing to the wall in front of us. I placed the sack on the floor and looked at the wall, up and down for any cracks or openings. _'Why did he bring me over here_?' I wondered to myself. My clone stepped up to the wall and gave it a knock with one of his gloved knuckles. He chuckled for a moment. "Yes, yes this will do nicely..." he said under his breath to himself.

I cocked an eyebrow as he turned back to me with his ear against the wall, waving me over. I stepped forward, becoming more confused as he suddenly smiled and let out an excited "AH HA!" with an energetic fist pump. (To this day I'm still not sure if he was alright in the head) "There is definately another corridor behind here, now we just need to get rid of this wall," he said, stepping back and motioning up and down the wall. I just stood there, still just as perplexed as before. "And how are we going to do that? I didn't exactly bring any C-4 with me," I said sarcastically, looking back at the wall. My clone laughed, pointing to my hand.

"You're the one with the ring, I'll let you do it." This caused me to spin around, looking first at him then at the ring in shock. _'What else was I capable of?_' "I can't do that, I wouldn't be..." but I was cut off as my clone came up, grabbing me by the shoulders, and stood me square in front of the wall. "You blew a hole straight through both a G.I. and a ceiling back in Normandy, I think you can take care of a single wall," said the clone as he stepped away from me, watching me intently. "You want me to throw a lightning bolt at that wall?" I asked.

He suddenly had a knowing look in his eye, "you can do a lot more than throw lightning bolts." "Stretch forth your hand, and image removing that wall from our path," he instructed, folding his arms as he continued to gaze at me. He was really interested in what would be happening next.

Looking un-easily at my hand for a moment, I slowly raised it towards the door, my palm straight and my fingers extended. My eyes narrowed as I concentrated on the wall, the ring slowly beginning to glow. But before anything could happen, I broke my concentration. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I looked over at my companion, who was now the one to look confused.

"If we're going to be travelling together, I think I need to know your name," I said, keeping my hand extended towards the wall.

My clone suddenly looked surprised. His eyes moved back and forth, as if searching his memory. But he didn't seem to find what he was looking for, his face scrunching up in even deeper confusion. "Uhhh...I..I..don't..." he stuttered, still searching his memory, his hand moving up to his forehead as if to relieve a headache. I frowned as he began muttering something under his breath. "You don't have a name?" I asked. He glared at me, looking somewhat embarassed. "Well, I...I did, once...but its been so long since I was last sent as a Ring Guardian. I've spent too long sleeping inside the ring that I've forgotten."

I let down my hand and thought of something I had heard before. "Alec," I suddenly said. My clone looked over at me. "I think I'll call you Alec," I said as I raised my hand to the wall again. The name had suddenly come to me as I was randomly remembering the character Alec Trevelyan from Golden Eye. "Alec...I like it," said the clone to himself as he mused on his new name.

_'Its fitting, he was Bond's friend and travelling companion, at least for a while. But then again he did betray and try to kill Bond later. Dammit, I hope this clone doesn't...'_ _BANGG!_ I was suddenly brought out of my thoughts by the sound of metal being torn away. I nearly staggered backwards as I gazed at the enormous jagged, smoking hole I had created in front of me. _"Holy shit_," we both said at the same time as he came up next to me. Grabbing my sack, we both stepped out into the corridor, over the jagged debris that littered the floor. The hallway was relatively clear and clean, aside from the damage I had just done, showing no signs of coming in contact with any of the creatures still running loose throughout the Ward.

Alec suddenly let out a cry of victory with a small jump into the air. "ALRIGHT! You're picking this up faster than Calia did!" said the mad clone with a laugh. I myself couldn't help but smile, maybe I could get the hang of this. Shouldering the sack with all my stuff in it, we both set off at a jog down the corridor, Alec keeping pace next to me.

After a few minutes we came to a large white door with a glowing red locking mechanism next to it. Without thinking, I simply pressed it and watched as the door folded away. What was on the other side made us both stop in our tracks. In front of use was a long white stairway that led down into a large orange lit alleyway, much like the alleyway I had to save Tali in during the game. Except this one was filled with a lot more then just thugs. Packed from nearly wall to wall, fighting with what ever they could get their hands on, were more Klingons! (How many of those guys were around here!)

There were probably a hundred or so of them, but it was who the Klingons were fighting that really made me say "what the fuck!".

A hundred Uruk Hai warriors (or Orcs for those of you who've never seen or read Lord of the Rings) bashed their broad shields or used their large fists against the toughened leather armour of the Klingons. The entire alley was a mass of large, long haired brutes smashing the shit out of each other.

A Klingon screamed out as an Uruk stabbed him through the chest. The black skinned Orc grabbed hold of the hilt and ripped out its dagger. After throwing the body to the ground, he glanced up at the two of us, who still just stood there dumbstruck at the whole scene. The massive creature narrowed its large yellow eyes and snarled, before drawing back its arm and hurling the blade at us.

"Oh crap!" we both shouted as we flung ourselves behind each side of the door frame. The blade flew past us and stabbed itself straight into the wall ahead. I quickly drew the katana from my back, grasping it with two hands. The pounding footsteps of the Uruk thundred closer as it charged up the stairs towards us.

"I've got an idea," said Alec from across me. I never got the chance to ask, for the Uruk stormed out in between us. Suddenly, Alec transformed. The armour and uniform he was wearing on his top half disappeared as his body became three times its size, with large muscles and veins bulging all over him. His skin changed to a dark gray as curved horns sprouted from his head and long claws from his fingers. His eyes glowed silver and his teeth grew large, sharp fangs.

I was the first the Uruk saw, as he turned and snarled at me. I was about to strike, when Alec grabbed the Uruk from behind with one of his new mammoth hands. He lifted the struggling Orc in front of him, as it snarled and fought. It roared in Alec's face as he spun it around.

He brought the Uruk closer and roared back in _its_ face, sending spit and grime shooting from his changed mouth, his roar sounding like a pissed off lion rather than a person. That was more then enough to make the Uruk shut up for a moment. With the flick of his wrist, Alec hurled the Orc back into the thrashing brawl down in the alley, smashing it into a group of its brethren. Still keeping my katana ready as I stared down at the mass of fighters, I glanced over at Alec's new body.

"Where'd you get _that_ from?" I asked with a laugh as I looked back down at the alley from behind the door from. He gave a throaty laugh, his voice having gone very deep with his transformation. "A demon I met in ancient Mesopotamia," he said, giving a toothy smile that showed his fangs. Looking down at the very end of the alley, I sighed in frustration. Up another set of stairs, surrounded by fighting Uruks and Klingons, was a glass elevator with an arrow sigh pointing up, and the word EXIT written on the door.

"We'll need a distraction..." I began, just then the ring lit up silver again. Suddenly a bright portal opened up directly in front of the elevator down at the end. This one however, expanded in size, something big was about to come through.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I shouted out in frustration mixed with shock. Out of the portal stormed the enormous muscle bound form of a Darkspawn Ogre!

Both the Klingons and Uruk Hai stopped in mid fight and stared up at the enormous creature. It stared at them for a moment before letting out a blood curdling roar and smashed both its fists into the group, crushing or knocking down any Klingon or Orc nearby.

Despite the carnage now ensuing, Alec stepped out from behind his cover, scratching his chin in confusion. "I'm getting some of your memories, that thing is from the game Dragon Age: Origins right?" asked the guardian casually as he turned to me. I couldn't believe this guy, he was breaking every rule in the book! "Get down!" I shouted as I shoved him back, just as two Uruks came flying towards us, screaming as they were thrown down the alley by the Ogre. Along its shoulders and wrists were thick armour plates covered in spikes, and the Ogre was using them with impunity to shred through both Klingon and Uruk Hai alike.

"That elevator is the fastest way out of this Ward!" I shouted to Alec over the shouts and smashing of metal coming from down in the alley. Alec transformed back into his original form, with the SS uniform and armour. "Are you seeing what that thing is doing, it'll shred you apart as soon as you set foot in there!" shouted Alec as the Klingons began to use their disrupter rifles on the Ogre, which was putting most of its attention on the Uruk Hai who were only armed with shields and swords. "Yeah, and I've seen what you can do, I've got an idea," I said with a mischievious smile as I grabbed my sack and dived over to him.

Down in the alley, the bodies of both Klingon and Uruks alike lay strewn all over the floor. The few Uruk Hai alive surrounded the thrashing Ogre as he tore apart a struggling Klingon. The few Klingons continued to fire their disrupters at the beast, having little to no effect on its tough hyde. With a swipe of its thick arm, the Ogre roared viciously as it shredded through the last few Uruk Hai around it, sending the bodies into the small squad of Klingons.

Shakily they lifted themselves up, covered in blood and sweat, their disrupters smoking in their hands from overheating. The bloody Ogre spread its arms open and lunged forward, making itself look bigger as it roared at the scared soldiers. The oldest survivor of the group threw down his useless disrupter and drew a curved Klingon sword from behind his back.

"Stand firm my brothers! For the Empire!" he shouted to the last few, rallying them around him as they drew their swords. The Ogre made a gutteral sound in its throat, almost like a horrid laughing. Just as it was about to leap on them, a sharp whistle sounded out, gaining everyone's attention.

Everyone looked over to see the strangest sight. Before them, I stood on the shoulder of another Ogre! With my left hand hanging off of one of its large curved horns, I held onto my drawn katana with my right while my sack hung tied off around my torso.

"This _is_ gonna work right?" I heard Alec ask under his breath, all the while trying to look his fiercest in his new Ogre form. "_Steadyyy_..." I said from the corner of my mouth, not breaking eye contact with the real Ogre staring at us. The Klingons slowly began backing away, keeping their swords in front of them. The Ogre stomped its feet as it turned towards it, drool slobbering from its chops as it snarled at us. "I think we're making it angry," said Alec, this time openly. The Klingons jumped at the sight of my Ogre speaking perfect English. The real Ogre smashed its fists together and bowed its head, pointing its horns directly at us.

"Be ready for it!" I said, crouching my legs on Alec's shoulder. I tightened my grip on both his horn and my katana. Alec himself crouched lower, tensing his massive arms in front of him. The Ogre roared a final time as it kicked up its leg like a bull before charging, doing just that not a second later.

"Hold on!" Alec shouted as we both braced ourselves, the Klingons diving out of the way as the Ogre thundered past. The raging force of nature smashed into my companion, nearly sending me off in the first blow. Alec locked his arms around the Ogre's back, pulling it tight to his body. This took it by surprise, it didn't know what to do, beginning to squirm and thrash. Quickly I jumped from Alec's shoulder onto its back, this time holding onto its horns as I viciously drove the katana through its back, stabbed down into its spine. But even that wasn't enough to stop it!

In a fit of rage, it bucked backwards, throwing me off. I crashed with my limbs sprawled, landing painfully on the stairway that led to the elevator. Groaning, I sat up. The Ogre had broken free of Alec's grip and was beginning to bash at him with its fists. At first it looked like he was losing, but I knew better.

I smiled knowingly as I stood up, Alec laughing like a mad man as he began to smash the Ogre with a few punches of his own. Grabbing onto each others' shoulders, the two beasts began shoving each other into the walls, sending debris down from the ceiling. The few Klingons stumbled from the shaking as they raced for the stairway that led to the other corridor.

"Go Axel, I'll catch up!" shouted Alec over the shouts of the Ogre, as he delivered a punch to the head, followed by a knee to the stomach.

Staggering to the elevator from the brawl going on behind me, I pressed the glowing red console, making the glass door raise up as I entered. I was slightly guilty leaving my new friend behind, but I felt pretty sure that an imortal guardian could handle his own. As the elevator rose above the alley, I caught one last look of Alec grabbing hold of the Ogre's neck from behind and twisting it.

Finally sheathing my katana behind me, I let out a tired sigh as I leaned against the glass door. At first there was nothing, just the concrete walls of the elevator shaft flashing by. But then blinding sunshine assaulted my eyes. "Ahhh..." I said in annoyance as I rubbed my eyes, not use to the change in the Citadel's artificial lighting. After adapting, I looked through the glass down at the Ward below.

"Oh _God_..." I said in horror at the sight before me. Gray smoke rose up from several street blocks within the Ward. Emergency Response units hovered above them, spraying the areas down with jets of water. In other areas, hover cars along with gunships circled above areas lit up with conflict from more creatures the ring had brought. My knees gave out. I slowly lowered myself onto the floor and leaned back against the wall, watching the scenery pass by. Lines of different ships and Rapid Transit cars criss crossed the skyline, some large military ships could be seen docking in large cradles connecting to the Presidium ring.

"This is my fault..." I said as I hung my head. The sounds of sirens and fighting could be heared faintly even this far up. Suddenly I felt a breeze next to me, right before seeing a pair of familiar black jackboots materialize in a whisp of smoke.

"This isn't your fault, the ring is testing you to see if you are strong enough to master it," came Alec's voice as I looked up. He looked like me again, dressed back in the torn uniform and dented armour. I smiled as he helped me stand. "I knew you'd find a way out," I said with a slight chuckle. Alec did so himself as we both looked at the Ward down below.

"This elevator should take us near the Presidium, we'll be able to find a way to get off the Citadel...or we could..." began Alec, before trailing off. I knew what he was leading up to, he held a portion of my memories and knew all about the game by now. He was suggesting that we get involved in the Mass Effect storyline, but why?

"Why can't I go into any other dimensions? Before I was jumping in and out almost at will, but now I'm only bringing things with me, we can't we leave through another portal" I said to my companion, looking over at him. Alec was quiet for a moment, watching the ships pass our slow moving elevator before speaking.

"In the past, whenever a bearer has received the ring, they have had to go on a quest to truly master their powers," he finally answered, not looking at me.

"Throughout human history, almost every prominent figure has worn the ring. The deeds they are credited with have usually been the very quests they were trying to complete in order to master the ring," he finished, pacing to the back of the elevator.

I frowned as realisation dawned on me. "So that's why I'm stuck here, I have to stop the Reapers!" I said as I spun around. Alec turned to me, nodding gravely. "If we can't leave this universe, then helping Shepard would seem like the most logical choice."

I nodded slowly, that would be the best plan, and what made it better was that I already knew the events ahead. But messing with timelines that you weren't a part of had consequences, if we were to do this we would have to do it right. "If I help Shepard, we might be altering the events that are suppose to happen in this dimension," I said after thinking it over for a moment, this caused Alec to frown.

"What are you proposing we do?" I rubbed the slight stubble I had neglected to shave this morning. _'What do you do indeed?'_ Then it came to me, I snapped my gloved fingers together as I looked back at Alec.

"We follow, go ahead of them and assist in events from the shadows, if they become too complicated we jump into the fray," I said, pointing over to the Presidium.

Alec smiled widely, nodding in agreement. "We'll need a ship..." he began.

"...and a team to crew it, much like Shepard's," I finished, now a bit excited. Turning back to the window, I looked over to the Presidium and caught sight of the ship I had been fearing at first. The small arrow like form of the _Normandy_ was visible even from this far away, slipping in and around the larger military vessels on its way to the Citadel Tower.

_Shepard_ was finally here.

"I'm also going to need a master in this sort of thing...someone who can help you teach me how to use my powers in this universe," I began, turned back to Alec. He was a good teacher so far, adn I didn't want to completely discard him. But he was use to the quests the other bearers had done on Earth, this would be a hard burden on his own out in space. Surprisingly however, he nodded in agreement.

Coming back over to my side, he gazed over at the Presidium. "I won't be able to teach you properly in this setting, we need someone experienced and more familiar with this," he said, motioning to the large weave of moving ships before turning to me. "Know anyone?" he asked.

I rubbed my chin again, what person did I know from a space genre that would understand the type of abilities I now possessed?

"Wait! I do know _one_ person," I said suddenly, turning to the wall behind us and stretching forth my hand. "Remember to concentrate hard on that specific person, otherwise you might bring someone else with them," said Alec beside me.

The ring began to glow silver again, but just then an explosion rocked the elevator, sending the both of us stumbling into the walls. Suddenly the glass door shattered, sending millions of shards shooting at us. We both tried to shield our eyes, falling to the floor from the force of the blast. From close by, the sound of a familiar jet pack screamed in my ears.

Looking up, I wasn't surprised to see the mighty visage of Jango Fett hovering above the shattered remains of the door. Gently landing down inside, he turned off his pack and slowly began walking over to me, his leather boots crunching on the glass shards.

"Now...where were we," said the Mandalorian, his voice tinged with his New Zealand accent. Just when I thought he was going to finish me off, a bright silver light engulfed the entire elevator, coming from the very direction I had tried to summon our new companion. Jango had to shield his eyes from the glare being shined into them by the new portal. When it was over, the bounty hunter staggered backwards at the sight of the creature I had summoned.

He was bald with a few white hair poking out here and there. He stood about three feet tall with large pointy ears and green skin. Around him, he wore a tattered white robe and held a small crooked walking stick in his right hand. At the moment his eyes were closed, and he was messaging his temple as if just coming out of a headache.

"_You_?...the universe is a small place after all," said Fett calmly, pointing his pistol at the wise, old alien.

The master opened his large yellowish eyes, and with a grim expression looked up at Fett with both his hands on the top of his walking stick.

"Pitiful this is, in another universe you still make trouble Jango Fett," said the old master, disgusted, in his deep croak like voice.

Alec looked up from the floor at this new creature with his eyes wide.

"_Yoda_..." he said with awe in his voice.

**And so the adventure begins! Will Axel make it out to help Shepard? Or will the ring prove his undoing? You'll have to stay tuned and see.** **I must also give a deep apology to all those who have been waiting intently for this the last few weeks, this is the longest chapter I have done for this. Tell me if it was too long, or if it ran on or tried to explain things too fast. I'll listen to your comments and reviews and try to update faster next time.** **But on a lighter note, give me a show of reviews for how many of you were saying WTF! when I brought in those random characters, especially the clones. Oh, and a little word for Alec, he is an original character of mine, but I'm going to try to base him heavily off of the Genie from Aladdin mixed with some of Gibbs from POTC. So if you see anything familiar from him it'll probably be from those two films. So I hope you enjoyed my longest chapter yet, and I'll have more for you guys later.**

Prev 1. A rough morning2. The Find of a Lifetime3. What the hell!4. We'll need a ship and a crew5. Seriously! No more elevators!6. The Citadel's Most Wanted7. I am Iron Man? Part 18. I am Iron Man? Part 29. I am Iron Man? Part 310. I am Iron Man? Part 411. I am Iron Man? Part 5 Next

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	5. Seriously! No more elevators!

**Alrightyy then! To everyone who was expecting this a HELL of a lot sooner, I am soooooo sorry. It took forever for the ice around my lake to break away, and after that I got several viruses because I didn't have anti-virus protection. But now that summer is here we can get back to the story.**  
**I told you guys Axel would return!**  
**The fifth chapter in my revived journey! I brainstormed hard for this one, we still have a few more key characters to bring in with us, and a few more members to add to our messed up team. But without further a do, lets get to it!**

A harsh cold breeze was coming into the elevator through the shattered door. It swirled around the four of us, making Yoda's robes flap around him as he and Fett continued to stare menacingly at each other. Alec slowly picked himself up, being wary of both figures that stood between him and I. Despite Fett's attack, the elevator had changed course and was now slowly moving towards the Presidium docks, coming closer with each second.

There were still shards of glass littering the elevator floor while I lay on my side, not daring to even breath, waiting to see who would make the first move. Finally it happened, but not from whom I was expecting.

Across from me, Alec had taken a step back until his shoulder had connected with the wall behind him. On this wall was a large engraving which spelt out the name, _SKYLIFT_. Next to this was a small red button, which at the moment had just been pressed by Alec's shoulder.  
Suddenly a catchy elevator tune began to play from the speakers hidden in the corners.

_"Hello, and welcome to the Citadel's new interchangable elevator system, known today as SKYLIFT."_

I rolled my eyes as the voice of Avina began to explain the new and advanced elevator to us.  
_"SKYLIFT is the Citadel's newest and largest addition in elevator transportation, composing of several cabins capable of changing tracks at almost anytime. Running along the length of all five of our station arms, SKYLIFT moves on elevator tracks capable of taking you almost anywhere you desire. From the Wards to the Presidium, almost nothing is too far for SKYLIFT to reach."_ Avina finished her little infomercial as the music faded away.

This sudden announcement caught everyone off guard. Both Yoda and Jango turned their heads towards Alec, the Jedi having a confused look on his face. Jango kept his silver blaster pistol pointed down at the Master, but at the moment his attention was still on my companion.  
I had to do something, otherwise this would get ugly...and fast.

Cautiously, I stretched out my hand towards the shards of glass sprayed all over the floor.

"Now...lets not lose our heads gentlemen," said Alec with an un-easy laugh, putting his hands out in front of him. The sight of these two fictional characters staring at him during a standoff was obviously more than a bit uncomfortable.

Yoda cocked his head to one side, studying Alec for a moment.  
"Strange...a great presence surrounds you," he said, lifting his three fingered hand towards him, as if using the Force to detect whatever it was he could sense. Jango gave a light chuckle, turning back to Yoda.  
"You Jedi and your feelings, its amazing that the Republic didn't fall apart sooner under your leadership," the bounty hunter said, a trace of arrogance to his voice, like he felt superior to the small alien in front of him.

Meanwhile still on my side, I flexed the fingers on my out-stretched hand, focusing my thoughts onto what I wanted to do next. The ring lit up silver as its power took effect.

Yoda gave a small laugh of his own as he turned back to face the Mandalorian.  
"And surprises me it does, that you know not the ways in which the Sith would have dealt with you, once you had worn out your usefullness." The little green alien jabbed his crooked walking stick up at the tall man while he spoke. That caused Fett to hesitate, the arm holding his weapon slightly lowered for a moment, before he regained his composure.  
"The Sith gave me everything I ever asked for. Wealth, freedom..." Jango paused, as if briefly reflecting on something. "...and a son." he finished quietly

"Then you threw it all away...for nothing," I said coldly up to him.

Jango snapped his head down to me, clearly I had just struck a nerve.  
But it wasn't just me he was now looking at, it was the layer of glass shards that was floating just above everyones' feet! (On Yoda it was more like above his knees)  
Before he could react, I sharply rotated my wrist upwards, manipulating the glass fragments to shoot up from the floor and straight into the bounty hunter's hemlet visor.

"UGH!" he shouted as he was caught completely off guard. The shards swept up and through him, flowing almost like a jet of water as they struck, lodging themselves into the fabric of his body suit while the rest scraped and cracked his jet black mask. He threw his left arm in front of him, attemped to shield his face, while from his right he fired off a shot from his blaster, straight at Yoda!

With lightning reflexes, the Jedi Master snapped out his hand towards the red blast, using the Force to deflect it off his palm and into the elevator ceiling, just like Darth Vader had in Cloud City.

The attack of glass had lasted only a few seconds, most of it being lost through the open door. Without any more ammunition to throw at him, the bounty hunter was a few seconds from regaining his sight. Seizing on that opportunity, Alec lunged forward with a kick straight to Fett's hand, sending the heel of his jackboot into the side of the pistol. The weapon was sent flying from the Mandalorian's grasp before he could do anything, and in perfect step I attacked also.

Still laying on my side, I quickly stretched out both my hands, the ring still shining silver, and levitated the bounty hunter into the air! Fett thrashed out his arms and legs as he took in his sudden loss of gravity. But as his attention turned back to me, he suddenly realized what was happening, and quickly drove his hand for the second pistol on his leg.  
Gritting my teeth, I threw him into the ceiling, smashing his jet pack straight into the elevator light centered over us. Jango grunted angrily as his back connected hard with the glass casing, shattering it to peices. In a quick motion, he ripped something from his belt and smashed his thumb down on it.

_"Shit!"_ I swore as I recognized the silver sphere he held in his grasp. With a sharp pull of my hands, I threw the Mandalorian head first into the wall behind Yoda.  
A sickening crack sounded out as his left shoulder slammed into the metal first, the sphere flying from his hand. I let go of my hold on him, dropping his body in a heap, while at the same time jumping up from the floor to catch the silver orb. It smashed off the floor just a few inches away from me, and bounced up directly into Alec's outstretched hands!

For a second he looked confused as he stared at the beeping device cradled in his palms. But soon realization dawned on him, my memories he had were now just beginning to make him recognize what that thing was. He snapped his head up with a look of shock and disbelief on his face.  
"Wait a minute! This is a thermal..."  
"Throw it for God's sake!" I shouted, cutting him off in mid sentence. In an instant he drew his arm back and pitched the thermal detonator through the shattered glass door. The device flew straight out of the elevator and arched down towards the Presidium Docks before exploding in a massive blast of fire and shrapnel.

(And when I say it exploded, I mean it exploded! This thing was ten times more powerful then what they show in the video games!)  
The shock wave blew everyone still standing backwards, sending each of us smashing into whatever wall was behind us. Hot pain ran through my back muscles as I smashed into the wall I had thrown Jango into, sliding down to land on my side right next to his unconscious form. Alec grunted as he pushed himself up off the floor, rotating his right shoulder that he had landed awkwardly on. Looking over to the other side, I saw Yoda already standing from where he had been thrown; he was just finishing brushing off some of the last few glass shards still caught in the threads of his robes.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked as I picked myself up into a kneeling position, grunting a little myself as I stretched out my sore back. Alec gave a sarcastic chuckle.  
"Oh of course we're alright, its not like having a bomb thrown at you is a bad thing," he stood up and stretched out his arm a bit more. Despite the sarcasm in his voice and the pain we were in, I couldn't help but genuinely chuckle myself.  
"Normally when someone's trying to kill you, _anything_ they do can be a bad thing," I retorted, still laughing. Alec cracked a thin smile at that as he conceded to my point, right before laughing a bit himself.

But then a click came from behind me. I suddenly felt a cold metal object pressing against the back of my head. I stopped laughing immediately, freezing in my kneeling position. Alec suddenly stopped chuckling himself as he noticed what was going on. Looking towards us, Yoda put down his walking stick and turned into a subtle defensive stance, aligning himself with me.

"Tell me...what does it mean then if that person has a gun pointed at the base of your skull?" whispered Fett in a quiet, and venomous tone. I slighlty turned my head, craning my neck so that my eye could get a good look at him. He was slumped against the wall with his left arm laying limp in his lap. His right was keeping his second blaster trained right where he said it would be.

Across from me, Yoda began inching forward while staying aligned with my larger body frame to keep him hidden from Jango. On the other side of the elevator, Alec glanced down at the floor, spotting Fett's other blaster not far from his foot.

"Don't bother, I can kill him and be on you before you get near that weapon," Fett suddenly said over to Alec, still keeping his gaze focused on me.

"Fett...you have no idea what's really going on," I said slowly, turning back to Yoda who was almost right in front of me. He closed his eyes and wrinkled his face in concentration. In that moment I suddenly felt his presence touch my mind, using his ability in the Force to communicate without Fett hearing.

_"I can help you stranger, but ready to move you must be when the time comes, warn you I will."_

Yoda's thoughts seemed to echo in my ears, almost drowning out what Fett was saying behind me.  
"...find out what I need to know, after I've dealt with you," finished the bounty hunter, ending what ever it was he was trying to spout off. Flexing my leg muscles in readiness for what ever Yoda had planned, I answered in an effort to keep him distracted.

"If you kill me, you'll never know the whole story..." I arched my fingers as I spoke, this would need every ounce of spring I could give myself.  
"...and you'll never find out why you were brought here," I finished, improvising a little to keep Fett interested in something other than blowing my head off. Luckily for me it seemed to work.

"Then why don't you tell me what this purpose is," he demanded. In front of me, Yoda drew his arms back and bent his legs slightly, getting ready to pounce on Fett as soon as I moved out of the way. Fett pushed the blaster a little harder against my head. "Well?" he said with a low growl.

_"NOW!"_ Yoda's inner voice commanded.

_"Sure,"_ I anwered Fett through gritted teeth, before launching myself to the right with every last bit of strenght I could muster.

Fett seemed to be half expecting this, his gun arm following me as I flew sideways, ready to blow me away in the next millisecond.  
But then Yoda attacked! The agile Master sprang forth, grabbing Jango sharply by his good wrist. This sudden action caused Fett to fire off his shot just past my shoulder. I heard something explode from the stray blast at is impacted on the wall nearest to the shattered door.

Hitting the floor, I rolled up into another kneeling position, spinning around with my Luger drawn. Quickly I cocked back the hammer, aiming it straight at the Mandalorian.  
During the second that this had all taken place, Alec had snatched up Jango's other blaster and was now aiming it at him as well.

But what we saw caused us to lower our weapons slightly.  
Yoda had a look of determination on his grim face. His three fingered hand was locked around Jango's wrist, a brilliant blue light swirling from his fingers and running up the rest of Fett's arm. The bounty hunter had dropped his weapon and was struggling to pull away from the Jedi, almost as if he were terrified of him. Even weakened, the Mandalorian was strong, causing Yoda to sway back and forth as Jango pushed and pulled to shake him off. But with his broken shoulder and Yoda's powers going against him, Jango's attempts to pull away became weaker and weaker, until finally he let out a laboured and painful breath before falling on his back and laying still.

Both Alec and I looked at each other in shock. (Did he really just do what I think he did?)  
"I thought the Jedi didn't kill prisoners," Alec said from the corner of his mouth, still keeping Jango's pistol slightly raised. Slowly I stood up, holstering my gun as I came closer to Yoda.  
"Is he dead?" I asked the Master next to me as I looked down at Jango's body.

Yoda let out a grim 'hum' sound before answering. "No, mearly unconscious, for now at least."  
Alec came up beside us and picked up Jango's other blaster, just in case the Mandalorian was hiding something up his sleeve.  
"Damn, never a dull moment here is it?" Alec asked with some humor to his voice.

"Gentlemen..." Yoda suddenly said. He turned to the wall he had be blasted into and used the Force to call his walking stick to him. After retrieving it he turned back to us.  
"Before another interruption, know your names might I?" he asked, gesturing to the both of us. I knelt down in front of the Master to be somewhat at his height. (This was going to take some explaining)  
"Master Yoda, we..." I began, but Yoda let out a croak like laugh.  
"Know also of me do you?" he said with another laugh, Alec chuckled as well from beside me.

"Lets just say we know of you."

Yoda gave a thin smile. "Proceeds me my reputation does it seems."  
I laughed a little myself. "Master, my name is Axel Sorenson, and this is my friend Alec..." I began as I nodded towards Alec.

The elevator was creaking on its main track, still on course for the Presidium Docks, now only a few minutes away. (Damn, is every elevator in Mass Effect slower than a snail's ass?)

"I'm afraid..._I_ am the one responsible for bringing you here," I said, hesitating on how exactly to explain this. But to my surprise Yoda only cocked his head slightly to the side, he was curious instead of shocked.  
With that I felt encouraged to continue. "I've been brought into something that I cannot fully understand, and I need your help to master these new powers I have been given."

Yoda rubbed his chin in thought, muttering something under his breath as he did. Surprisingly to both Yoda and myself, I reached out and lightly gripped the Jedi by his shoulder.  
"We need your help to complete this quest," I said sternly, trying the best I could to stress the importance of him coming with us.  
He made another hum sound as he muttered a bit more to himself, apparently not finding the amount of trust I was putting in him as awkward. He stayed that way for a few seconds before looking back up at me with another thin smile.

"Very well young Sorenson, what help may I be?"

Both me and Alec let out a sigh of relief. (His being a little bit more dramatic than was necessary)  
With Yoda on my side, not only could he and Alec teach me to master the ring, but we'd be able to pack a hell of a bigger punch against the Reapers once they arrived. I dropped my hand from Yoda's shoulder and extended it to him, for which he grasped with his smaller one, both of us shaking the other firmly.  
"Thank you sir, we'll need to prepare soon or else..." but I was cut off by a loud creaking sound that seemed to shudder throughout the entire elevator.

Suddenly the entire cabin shook violently as the sound of metal scraping on metal screamed out all around us. We all barely held our balance as the elevator ground to a halt, sending us bracing against either each other or the closest walls. Thick swirls of black acidic smoke began to fill the room, causing us to cover our faces with our arms to keep from breathing it in. Looking over to the control switch for directing which way the elevator went, I wasn't surprised to see all the smoke billowing out from its destroyed circuits.

Alec coughed before pushing himself off of the wall he had braced himself against.  
"How the hell did that happen?" he asked through his arm. Walking over, I reached my left hand inside and pulled out a few of the melted wires and computer chips, sending a barrage of hissing sparks all over my SS gloves.  
"Looks like that one shot Jango threw at me went straight into the control panel..." I began as I turned towards the door to keep from breathing in the fumes, blowing out an exasperated sigh as I threw down the destroyed components.  
"...which means we're stuck here," I finished tiredly, rubbing the bridge of my nose as I walked over to look at down at the Presidium.

But as I took my last step near the door's shattered remains, something snapped underneath my weight.  
Suddenly the entire elevator cabin lurched forward, sending the floor slanting downward as the mechanisms keeping us attached to the track broke apart. All three of us were thrown to the floor, and immediately started sliding down towards the open doorframe!  
I threw my hands out in every direction, trying frantically to find anything to keep me from slipping out of the elevator and plummeting to the Presidium far below.

"Dammit, not again!" I shouted out in anger as I felt my legs slip over the edge. In the last split second I had, I reached behind my back and wrenched out my katana from it's sheath. With a surging cry of effort, I drove the tip of the blade down into the polished metal floor, slicing through it and finding purchase just as my whole upper body followed my legs.

The force of my sudden stop caused the rest of my body, still hanging out of the door, to swing up and slam against whatever was under the elevator floor. I cringed and bared my teeth as fresh pain raced across my torso. There had still been glass shards lodged in the doorframe as I slid over, some of them had now just torn open my black T-shirt and left a few long, shallow scratches across my chest.  
Up above me I heard a small scratching sound, along with a straining grunt. Hanging onto the sword's hilt with both hands, I looked up to find Yoda struggling to dig his long yellow nails into the metal floor. But a shudder from above us caused him to lose his grip.  
Much like after his fight with Darth Sidious in the Revenge of the Sith, Yoda slowly slid backwards, his nails carving long track marks until he lost his grip entirely. Just like me, Yoda couldn't find anything to grip off of in time; and due to his small size, the Jedi Master was sliding down towards the door faster than I had!  
Quickly, I let go of the hilt with my right hand and threw it out to the side just as the speeding alien went past me. Luckily Yoda had noticed what I was doing. He let go of his walking stick and kicked himself towards me just as he went over the edge. Both our hands gripped the other hard as I caught him, straining my arm as he slammed against my leg. (This guy was heavier than he looked)

The sudden weight of us both on the katana caused it to slide a bit out of the floor, inching us a little farther out into the cool air. I looked down at Yoda as he swung back and forth a little on my arm.  
He gazed sourly at his ancient walking stick disappearing towards the Presidium ring below us.

"I'm sorry Yoda," I said through gritted teeth, the pain in both my arm and chest causing me to add more bite than sympathy to my tone. But Yoda didn't seem to notice, he just looked up at me with a calm expression.  
"Merely an object it is, get another I can," he said, but with a slight tinge of regret to his words. Gripping my fore-arm with his other hand, the small Jedi climbed up me like a monkey, using his frog like feet to grap handfulls of my T-shirt as he moved up my back before hanging off of my shoulders.

"Sorry about this people, but HEADS UP!" shouted Alec's voice from up above us.  
Grabbing the hilt with both hands again, I snapped my head up over the edge to see Alec hanging off of a wall outlet that he had been able to grab hold of before the floor had given out. But, while he was hanging off of that with his left hand, in his right he was holding onto the limp form of a still unconscious Jango Fett.  
At the moment I couldn't see what he was panicked about, until both he and Jango suddenly came sliding directly at us!  
Although Alec had powers of his own, he still wasn't able to to give himself a better hold on the outlet. That, added to the dead weight of Jango's natural blocky form, you could see why Alec was having trouble holding onto that wall. At the moment the small outlet had broken off, letting both bounty hunter and Ring Guardian speed down towards us with nothing else to grab onto. Alec still held onto Jango's arm while his left reached out for another outlet, but he was too far away and missed.

Jango, on the other hand, was still knocked out, letting gravity and friction move his limbs for him. His body slowly moved horizontal as it continued to pull Alec along with him, making the toe of one of his boots line up right with the katana and my head. If Jango's body so much as tapped us, it would dislodge the blade and send both me and Yoda going down to join his walking stick!

"I could use a little help," I said over my shoulder to the Master on my back. Yoda pushed himself up to my ear and stretched his hand over my shoulder. Up above, Alec and Jango were less then a metre away from us, but suddenly the bounty hunter's feet were pulled sharply back under him, and away from us.  
Jango's body slid easily over the edge, but still dragging Alec along with him!

"Alec!" I shouted as the lower half of his body went over with his baggage. The guardian cursed in some unknown language before he angrily flexed the fingers on his left hand. Suddenly five jet black talons extended through the fingers of his SS glove as he drove his hand into the very edge of the floor. He had slipped even farther than me and Yoda, with his shoulders, head, and even half of his left arm having gone past the shattered edge. He grunted as he shifted his right arm a bit, while Jango dangled lifelessly below.

"You alright?" I asked down to him, looking over my shoulder. Alec bared his teeth as he shifted Jango again, keeping his clawed hand as tight into the metal as he could.  
"DO I BLOODY LOOK ALRIGHT?" He shouted up angrily as he shifted Jango again, the Mandalorian's weight really putting a strain on his current form. Suddenly another snap echoed out around us from somewhere behind the elevator. The cabin shuddered again, dropping downward a little bit more, and sending the floor to an even steeper angle.  
This sudden jerk also jarred the blade of the katana loose again; the sword sliding a few more inches out of the floor and sending me and Yoda out over the Presidium just a little bit farther.

"Dammit what's next?" I voiced out loud as I stole a look down at the Docking Ring far below. I heared Alec grunt again as Jango's dead weight continued to sway back and forth.  
"You know...with the way our luck's going...it seems like this would be a great time for the cops to show up...just to shake us up a bit," Alec said through clentched teeth as he adjusted his arm holding the bounty hunter.

I was about to laugh at that when all of a sudden we heard the sound of gunship repulsers over the usually screech of hover car traffic nearby. Letting my left hand drop from the hilt, I hung there trying to see if I could spot where they were coming from. Sure enough, amongst the criss crossing Fast Transit Cars that zoomed back and forth above our wrecked elevator, two dark A-61 Mantis gunships cut their way through the mob towards us. They came to a dead hover just a few yards away from the elevator, the exhaust wind from their engines blasting straight against us.

_"Citadel Security, stay right where you are!"_ came one of the pilots' voices over a loud speaker. Both Alec and I looked at each other in confusion. You had got to be kidding me.

_'Did he seriously just ask us to freeze while we're hanging on for dear life?'_ I thought to myself.

"Now, that just ain't right!" Alec shouted in disbelief. The elevator shuddered again slightly, causing us to cringe in case something else broke. Luckily everything seemed fine for the moment.  
"You had to say it didn't you?" I shouted angrily down to him, more really to be heard over the gunship's engines than me being angry at him.

_"Axel, we're going to be sending men on lines to get you and your people off that thing, try not to move too much."_

I let out an annoyed groan as I recognized the commander's voice coming from the other gunship.  
_'Bailey. Why is it always Bailey?' _

This thought went through my mind as I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my free hand. Even while under the strain of his baggage, I could hear Alec chuckling to himself. After catching my annoyed look, he gave a crooked smile.  
"Look on the bright side, at least he's offering to get us off this thing," he called up.  
"Doubt I do, that spending time in solitary confinment would aid in our mission," came Yoda's voice in my ear. I nodded at that, I was still a fugitive after my little stunt in the corridor, and I doubted that Bailey was going to be willing to let any of us go after he got us onboard.

"This isn't the time Bailey!" I shouted out to the future Captain's gunship. The space craft continued to hover level with me, almost like a Great White staring down a swimmer in the ocean, right before it made the kill. Although I couldn't see him, I had a good feeling that he and I were locking eyes just like that right now.  
_"You're on the run from justice son, and you're a danger to public safetly, I can't just let you go free,"_ came Bailey's voice after a short pause. I shook my head with yet more annoyance, this was like talking to the Council back in the game, no matter what I said he wasn't going to believe me.  
"There are a lot more dangerous things back down in that Ward, don't you have bigger fish to fry?" shouted Alec up to the gunship. Bailey manouvered the craft to get a better look at Alec, obviously having been out of view.

_"Ward-D has already been cleared out, but we have nothing left since the bodies of those things disappeared shortly after we killed them."_ Suddenly it hit me, he was still after us because we were the only proof about what had happened. Without us the Council and Executor Pallin would just regard it as a freak riot. Or worse, that human radicals were responsible.  
Since the Klingons, Orcs and Stormtroopers had human like biology, it was a very believable excuse.  
"He might have taken your little escape as a personal insult you know," Alec suggested up to me. There was that too.

"Bailey, I'm on a mission to help save..." I began trying to explain, hoping that I would distract him long enough for us to come up with some escape. But before I could really explain anything, Alec cut me off.  
"Axel...I think you forgot something!" shouted the guardian. The urgency in his voice caused me to stop and look to where he was motioning with his head. Looking back up into the elevator, I gazed around for a second until I found what it was that I'd forgotten.  
And when I saw it, my heart stopped for a second.

Pinned to the corner of the wall was the brown sack I had used to carry my SS uniform and Samurai armour. At the moment it was stuck to the wall by a small piece of metal shrapenel that had gone past us after Jango's thermal detonator had gone off. However, with the elevator now tilted at such a steep angle, the sack was obeying to the laws of gravity. This meant that instead of hanging against the wall, it was hanging off of it, with its bottom end pointed down towards us, swaying back and forth a little at the subtle rocking of the elevator.  
But what Alec had noticed wasn't just that, it was what was happening to the sack while it hung there.

A small ripping sound could be heard, as the fabric began giving away to the weight of the armour!  
Suddenly the sack fell from the wall, plummeting straight down towards my head. Immediately Yoda did the same thing he had done with Jango's legs. Snapping his hand across my shoulder, the Jedi stopped the charging sack in mid air. It floated like it was under water, the fabric rippling at odd times as it rotated slghtly to the side.

_"We're getting you off that thing now, hold tight,"_ Bailey's voice blarred from the gunship as he pulled it back and brought it up to a hover above us. On the sides of the ship, two small hatches slid open. A turian agent on either side threw out a long black rope before clipping them on to their belts. The ropes dropped until they were dangling down behind us. When C-Sec wanted to grab us they'd be able to.

"Well guys, its been fun," I said, knowing no other way to get us out of this. Both me and Yoda looked up at the desending turians as they swung out of the gunship and began lowering themselves down towards us.

"Actually, I don't think we're done yet," said Alec forbodingly, his eyes wide as he stared at the sack still caught in Yoda's Force grip. Bringing my head back, I caught what he was looking at right away. The sack was still being held by Yoda, but the contents weren't. The rip that had set the bag free from the wall was still spread open, showing some of the armour inside. But at the moment, Yoda was still looking up at the C-Sec agents, and not paying full attention to what was happening.

The sack dipped down slightly until one of the shoulder guards poked through, it stayed that way for a brief second before slipping out of the sack and falling down towards me.  
"Ugh!" I grunted angrily as the armour guard fell past the katana and smacked me in the face. I caught it with my free left hand, but looked up only to get smacked in the face again by the other guard. I caught that one too, but just before another shudder went throughout the cabin. This time accompanied by a metalic groan. We were putting too much weight on the front!  
_"Yoda!"_ I shouted over my shoulder to get the Master's attention, holding on as tight as I could with my right hand as the cabin began to shake. Yoda quickly snapped out of his daze and used the Force to manipulate everything in the sack to keep it from falling out.

But it was too late. A quick series of snaps within the elevator track caused the cabin to buck forward one more time. All around us we heard a quiet creaking sound, like metal straining from too much weight on one end. This was not going to be good.

* * *

Up above the elevator, the two turian agents stopped in the middle of their rope descent. As they looked down at the wreckage that was still billowing with black smoke, they witnessed a series of sparks flash out from behind the elevator. One of the large clamps keeping it attached to the track had already snapped off, and the other had broken in several places with carbon scorching all around it, as if it had been hit by some kind of explosive device.

One of the agents tapped an earpiece that connected him to Bailey.  
"It looks bad sir, that thing is leaking chemical vapours, and its track connecters have also been badly damaged," the agent said as he craned his neck to get a better look at their fugitives.  
So far they were just hanging there. Two of them must have been twin brothers, both looking identical. One was holding a seemingly dead or unconcious body of a large armoured man underneath him, while the other seemed to have a small toddler hanging off his back. But the odd thing about this child from the agent's perspective was that it was green coloured, and had long pointed ears sticking out of either side of its head.

_"You have your orders, swing down and retrieve those men before that thing gives way,"_ came Bailey's voice over the radio. The agent signaled an affermative as he and his partner continued down their ropes. Suddenly the agent heard one of the blonde men shout something. A loud series of cracks sounded out as the agents witnessed the last connection cables snap loose in a firestorm of sparks.  
Then the entire cabin jerked forward! The last damaged clamp suddenly began to buckle under the weight of the cabin, letting out a creaking sound that got louder as more and more of it began to break down the center.

_"Double time it, get those people out of there!"_ barked Bailey's voice. The two began dropping faster in order to get to the elevator's shattered door in time. Down below, the second Mantis gunship they had brought with them slowly eased away from the failing mechanism, making sure not to get crushed once that thing came down.

* * *

"This is not gonna be good," said Alec, shaking his head.  
"Yeah, you've said that twice now," I retorted, still straining to keep my hand tight on the hilt. The creaking was picking up speed and pitch as the cabin continued to slowly pull downward. Instead of hanging off the edge of the door frame, we were now hanging level with the floor, able to look directly back into the cabin as we swayed with the movement.  
The nearby star, Widow, was shining bright rays of white sunlight onto us. At any other time this would have been nice, but right now it was reflecting off the katana's blade and blinding me in the process. I wedged my eyes shut for a moment, turning away from the blade to keep from damaging them.

"So whats the plan?" asked Alec, still trying to keep Jango from falling.  
"Does the ring let me fly?" I suggested sacrastically as I turned over to him. Alec let out a laboured breath with a shrug.  
"I don't know, why don't you give it try." We both had a short chuckle at that. But we were soon inturrupted by a small 'ping' that seemed to come from the new ceiling that use to be the back wall. Just then the cabin gave one final jerk.

"This thing is taking a while to fall off," remarked Alec, looking around the cabin. I glanced behind me to see a small piece of metal glint in the pale sunlight as it passed by us.  
_'What was that?'_ I thought to myself.

"Did that look like a wrench to you?" I asked Yoda as he gazed along with me, this time keeping better control of my baggage still floating above us.  
"Indeed," Yoda nodded. Up above us we heard angry shouting from one of the turians. Alec smirked a bit to himself as he listened. "Sounds like they dropped something on us," he commented with another laugh. He immediately stopped laughing as we both shot each other a look.

Just as we had been fearing, the final clamp broke loose, losing its hold on the cabin as we plunged into free fall.

* * *

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!" shouted the turian agent as his partner looked dreadfully at the sight of his utility wrench plummeting towards the wrecked cabin. It bounced off the metal box with a nice 'ping' sound as it continued on its way into space. The cabin jerked one final time, both turians roping down the last few feet as fast as they could.

But it made no difference, the final clamp snapped. The cabin ripped off its cradle and plummeted down towards the Presidum, their path slowly arcing them towards the Market District.  
_"Rescue team report!"_ ordered Bailey. The turian immediately tapped his earpiece.  
"Sir, the cabin has broken free, repeat it has broken free! We need an immediate evac of the District below us!" the turian reported with military precision.

_"Shit,"_ Bailey cursed. _"There's no time, Echo 2, get down there now!"_ he barked to the other gunship.

The Mantis known as Echo 2 pulled back sharply from the smoking track before nose diving after the falling cabin. This was definately not good.

* * *

"HAAAAAAHHH!" both Alec and I screamed as the cabin came loose, sending a rush of air past us as it drove down towards the metropolis below. (At least we were getting there faster than what the elevator was giving)  
Before I knew it my legs were being pushed up from behind me. I lost my grip on both the katana and the two shoulder guards as the air and gravity shot me upwards, plowing me straight into my sack still floating above us. The sack cushioned my head a little as the rest of my front slammed into the back wall.  
Over by the door the smoke from the control console had stopped, allowing us to breath normally, but that didn't help our predicament by much at the moment.  
G-Force was pressing against me as the cabin shook around us. I felt Yoda slip off my back as the box we were in began to rotate slightly. Positioning myself like I was doing a push up, I fought against the forces pressing me down and flipped myself onto my back.  
Only to see a screaming Alec come flying at me!

"LOOK OUT!" was all he could shout before he smashed head first into the wall, getting pinned just next to me. I grabbed him sharply by the shoulder and used all my strength to flip him on his side, shouting in his face to be heard over the raging wind.  
"Where's Jango!" Alec could only look ahead with a face of genuine fear. I turned back to face the doorway, just in time to see the body of the 250 pound Mandalorian come hurling towards us.

"AHHHHHHH!" was all we shouted before he slammed into us with the force of a sledge hammer.

* * *

Down in the Presidium, reporter Emily Wong sat at a modest table at her favourite cafe. She had just finished yet another shift of fruitless searching for hard evidence against gangs in the Citadel Wards.  
It was really starting to get to her lately, she'd been on this project for months and still hadn't found something to implicate the known crime bosses on the station. Not even the minor gangsters were proving easy to investigate.

"Not even Fist," she muttered to herself as she propped her chin in her hand, leaning tiredly on her table, drumming her fingers as she thought.  
_'Hell, not even Elias Kelhem, there's a small fry for you.'_ She thought bitterly as she let out a disappointed sigh, looking out of the large window next to her as she thought about other ways she would need to find evidence. The view of the Presidium Lake was incredible from this angle, and the cafe wasn't a far walk from the Market District, in case you wanted to buy any goods after a nice coffee.

"I've seen that look before," came a soft voice from beside her. She snapped out of her daze to see the smiling face of her friend Kalowan, the Salarian cafe owner. In his hand he held a steaming mug of her favourite coffee blend. The auroma caused her to close her eyes and inhale its sweet fragrance for a moment.  
"Thanks Kalowan," she said with a smile of her own as she accepted the mug. In his other hand, Kalowan was holding another mug of that special Salarian tea he always drank. The sight of him drinking that with his usual black and white business suit and glasses always reminded Emily of a Harvard professor. Kalowan slipped into the seat opposite of her and took a moment to polish off his glasses. She took a deep sip of the coffee, savouring every moment before placing it down on the table. She giggled a little as she watched him fiddle with a spec of dirt that didn't want to come off his glass lense right away.  
"You know me too well," she said as she took another blissful drink from the mug. Finally getting rid of the dirt spec, Kalowan replaced his glasses before taking a sip of his tea.

"I also know when you're troubled," he answered after his drink. Emily sighed again. "Its that gang project I've been on, I still haven't found anything damaging, or even credible against the kingpins around here. Everyone knows there's organised crime, but they don't acknowledge it, its made finding information on even the smalls things difficult."

Kalowan nodded, placing his own mug down. "Just remember to be careful, even the smaller bosses got to where they are today through brutality, they won't think twice about hurting you if you get too close," he said kindly, portraying the image of a very wise man.  
Emily leaned back in her chair, an ironic smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.  
"I know, I just wish I could get it over with but still make a difference. At the very least I wish I could bring back something to my editors, just to show them that I'm still working."

Kalowan gave a light chuckle at that. "You'll find it eventually. What is that human phrase 'As long as you are patient, time will always be on your side'?"  
Emily giggled again. "I think you mean 'all things come to those who wait'"  
The Salarian gave a smile, "either way."

Emily took hold of her mug with her right hand and took another drink. Suddenly she felt Kalowan's three fingers tap her other hand, trying to get her attention. Looking back at him, she saw that he was staring out of the large window next to their table, having spotted something in the sky. Putting down her mug, she turned to find what he was looking at. Other patons in the cafe were seeing it too, soon the room became a buzz of muffled chatter as they all began moving towards the nearby windows to get a look at it. Turning back to her as several people crowded around the table to use the their's, Kalowan gave her an amused look.

"Look's like you didn't have to wait long."

Standing up to get a better view, Emily activated her omni-tool. The device enveloped her arm in the orange hologram as she activated the recording application. Aiming her arm at the object falling towards the Market District, she enhanced the view on her screen to get a better look.  
What she saw caused her to reel in shock. Many of the patrons, including Kalowan, soon crowded around her in order to get a better view of the enhanced image.

On her screen appeared to be a badly damaged elevator cabin plummeting towards the Presidium. The markings on the sides showed it to be one of the new _SKYLIFT_ elevators.  
Close behind it was an A-61 Mantis gunship nose diving in order to catch up. But it was what was inside the falling cabin that everyone was interested in.

As soon as Emily had zoomed in, the cabin seemed to slowly flip over in its speedy descent, until its shattered door was facing upward. The crowd gasped as they saw a young blonde man get flung up from the inside, swinging his legs and arms out in an attempt to get back in. In his frantic flailing of limbs, he seemed to be screaming something to who ever else was hidden within the cabin.  
He was dressed in a black uniform of some kind, with equally black armour plates attached to his chest, arms, and legs.

As this man continued to reach out for the elevator, the head of another blonde man appeared just past the edge of the door. He was reaching his right hand out towards the falling man, a dim silver light could faintly be seen from this distance, coming from one of his seemingly gloved fingers. Incredibly, the other man hovering above the cabin seemed to get sucked back in, before both of them disappeared from sight. The entire cafe got louder as people began questioning what was happening, while others simply watched the action unfold.

_'He's right, this is a story I've been looking for,'_ Emily thought to herself as she continued to gaze at the screen.

* * *

"PULL ME IN, PULL ME IN!" Alec screamed over the roaring wind. The screech of the Mantis could be heard as it continued to sway from side to side just behind Alec, closing the space between us and it. Alec himself was hovering over top of us, falling at the same speed as the cabin after getting sucked out. He kept trying to reach out towards the edge of the door, but continued to fail as the wind kept pushing him away. Yoda floated unconscious just off the floor behind me, having been knocked out by one of Jango's boots catching him in the side of the head.  
And thus adding to my problems. Without Yoda, I was the only one who could stop this run-away elevator.

It was up to me to get everyone out of this alive.

At the moment, I was pressed tight against what had once been the right wall, gripping my retrieved katana with my left hand as I stabbed it into the soft metal.  
Keeping myself anchored within the cabin, I poked my head out into the cold rushing air, extending my other hand up towards him. Focusing my mind, I flexed the muscles in my hand, drawing upon the ring's power. The band lit up silver, and as I clenched my fingers into a fist, Alec was quickly diving head first back in through the doorway. He came to a crash landing next to Yoda and Jango, followed soon by myself as I kicked away from the wall, propelling down towards him.

The wind was still raging all around us, but at least we weren't being flattened by gravity anymore. On the contrary, both of us were trying the best we could to stay firmly attached to the wall, making sure we didn't have a repeat of Alec's skydiving stunt.

Suddenly, the engines on the Mantis changed in pitch. Having landed on my stomach, I looked over my shoulder to see the gunship quickly bank upward, pulling away from us as fast as he could. Right after that, far off to the right, I could make out the peak of the Citadel Tower shoot up past us. Down below, the sound of Fast Transit Cars flashed past us as we dived through their travel lanes.

We'd finally made it to the Presidium. And now we were about to crash right into it!

_'Come on Axel, think of something!'_ I wracked my brain. What power did I have that could save us? The Tower was becoming bigger around the base as we plummeted closer to the ring surrounding it.

We were running out of time!

* * *

C-Sec agent James Forsenski rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time. Not long ago he had recieved a call from C-Sec Academy about a theft in the Market District; but after arriving on site, he could tell why right away. The victim in question was a short, middle aged woman. Dressed in an overly lavish one piece gown, she had stormed up and immediately began making demands of him to find her stolen item.  
After getting her to calm down somewhat, he took out an OSD pad in order to take her statement. But even that proved difficult, for she immediately flew into a rant about how she was minding her own business, and how the policing systems around there weren't effective in keeping public order.

"...cost me several thousand credits, I demand that you organize an extensive search of the whole district!" she continued screeching. At the moment they were both standing in a lush park area on an open pathway, with lines of trees and tranquil water ponds on either side. Up ahead was a ceilinged corridor that led to the clusters of shops throughout the Market District. All around them, hundreds of people were giving the two a wide birth. Business consultants, merchants, or political figures didn't want their private calls or conversations being interupted by the woman's ranting.

"Ma'am, could you please calm down and start from the beginning," the agent asked as gently as he could, keying a few things onto his OSD. Instead the woman's eyes seemed to bulge right out of her sockets.  
"Do not make demands of me! Do you know who I am! It is you who should be finding my stolen property!"  
_'Yadda yadda lady,_' James thought to himself, deciding to pay more attention to his pad rather than listen to her all day. But suddenly she let out a blood curdling scream.  
Forsenski barely had time to react. The lady was already running away from where he was standing. Everyone else in the area around him were also screaming, each of them pointing up to the holographic sky as they ran.

James shot his head up to see the unthinkable happen.

* * *

"This is bad!" shouted Alec, extending and sinking his black talons into the nearest wall to keep himself attached to the cabin. In the crook of his arm he held Yoda's limp body, and with his free hand he held a still unconscious Jango by the back of the neck, pushing him down against the metal to keep the lack of gravity from moving him any where else.  
I stabbed the katana down hard into the wall I had been hanging off of, my whole body lifting upwards behind me as I gripped the hilt with both hands. I could hear people screaming just below us.

We were seconds away from smashing into the ground!

Suddenly, one desperate idea came to me.  
_'This is gonna hurt_,' I thought to myself, wincing at what was about to come.

Letting out a deep breath, I let go of the hilt. The air wooshed up around me, sending me shooting up from the cabin, and through the doorframe.  
"AXEL!" I heard Alec shout. I flew up until I was falling at the same speed as the cabin, hovering above the shattered door. I could see Alec still holding onto the other two, shouting something up to me that I couldn't quite hear over the wind. I spread myself in a skydiver's X to keep the wind from tossing me around. The multi-coloured ground of the Presidium could just be seen through the haze of the holographic sky. Down below I could see detailed miniture people running in every direction, all screaming as they tried to get out from under us.

It was now or never!

Focusing all my thoughts, I flexed my fingers on both hands. The ring lit up a bright blinding silver as I drew an enormous surge of power from within it. I could feel hot energy coursing through my veins, pulsing in rythm with my rapidly beating heart. A bright light spread out from both my palms, engulfing my hands in what seemed to be flickering silver flame. Quickly, I arched my back, drawing my arms back as far as they would go.

With all my strength, I shouted out a war like cry and slammed my flaming hands together in an earsplitting clap, sending out a thunderous _CRACK!_ across the entire station. The flame engulfing my hands turned into a massive silver shockwave. It blasted away from me towards the ground, enveloping the falling cabin and dissapating out across the lush park we were falling into.

At that moment, just as I had been hoping, the cabin stopped dead in mid air. As it floated there, it seemed to be surrounded by a glowing silver aura, a lot like when biotics are used.

Un-fortunately, just as I had also been _fearing_, I was now falling straight through the shattered door back into the elevator!  
I braced myself hard as I smashed into the cabin wall below me, angling myself onto my left side so my shoulder and arm would take the brunt of the fall. The force of the impact seemed to push the floating cabin down another few feet. I yelled out in pain as something in my ribcage cracked. My crash landing had also caused me to bounce over to the side, setting off the balance of the now weightless elevator.

The cabin flipped sideways, sending Alec, Jango, and Yoda smacking into the wall I was on. This only set off the balance even further. I suddenly found myself rolling backwards uncontrollible. Ignoring the pain in my chest as best I could, I threw my hand out for the katana that was still lodged in the wall. My fingers clamped down around the hilt, and for a brief second I felt relieved.

But then the blade became dislodged, sliding out from the force of my weight, and sending me tumbling out through the door! I screamed as I fell backwards out of the elevator, reaching out to the door frame with my other hand, and just missing it by an inch. I flipped once in the air, expecting to splatter out across the ground any second now.

But to my surprise I felt sharp pain race up through my back in multiple spots, like a thousand tiny needles were being stuck into my skin. I soon found out what I was falling into when the back of my head cracked against several sharp tree branches. "AGH!" I shouted in pain as green leaves and thin branches snapped apart under my weight, the thicker branches slamming hard into my backside like high speed baseballs.

And then it finally stopped. I yelled as I fell out of the tree, coming smashing down onto a white tile pathway. I hissed badly as my adrenaline rush began to receed, sending both my head and my chest into excruciating pain. All around me, bits of branch and torn leaves fell down like snowflakes.

My eyes were shut tight, the pain making me numb all over. "Ughhhh..." I moaned as I let go of my katana, moving both my hands up to my aching skull, trying to dull the pounding of my racing headache. The cut I had gotten back in Calia's tomb had re-opened again, sending fresh drops of blood leaching into my hair. Still messaging the back of my head, I dared to open one eye to get an idea of where we were.

"Ahhh! Dammit!" I said angrily, as bright sunshine from the holographic sky burned my retina. I put my left hand out in front of me to shield my face. (Everywhere I go the sun's shining ha ha!...what?)  
"Why is everything here so bright?" I complained to myself as I reached over with my right hand to grab the katana. But the sun wasn't the only thing blinding me, the ring was still shining silver as I gripped the hilt of the sword.  
Looking up, I could see the elevator cabin still floating above the large tree I had just crashed through, the silver glow coming off of the metal seemed to blend in with the sun's rays.  
Using the katana as a prop, I put most of my weight on the blade to pull myself up. Once I was finally standing, I winced a little as I reached back to sheath the sword, keeping pressure on my chest with my other hand.

"Okay, lets see..." I said to myself as I stretched out my ring hand up towards the cabin.  
"You guys alright up there?" I called out to them, trying to focus my thoughts into bringing the elevator to the ground. I must have been thinking that a bit too literally, for suddenly the ring's shining light vanished. (And ergo the phrase 'careful what you wish for') My eyes widened as I shot my gaze to my finger, then back up to the sky as the silver glow around the cabin evaporated.

"Oh shit!" I heard Alec yell as he and the other two were pinned to the ceiling once more. The cabin dropped the last ten feet like a stone, smashing down into the tree that had cushioned my fall. The sudden weight of the steel box split most of the branches to pieces, crashing its way through the thicket of leaves before coming to a jarring stop near the base. I stumbled backwards as branches, leaves, and splinters rained down above me. Gasps and small screams could be heard from all around as people began to come closer to see what was going on. Ignoring the looks I was definately getting, I rushed back under the tree, looking for where the door had gotten to.

The elevator itself had been wedged between the three main branches that split away from the trunk in the center. The door was facing downward, stuck behind one of those said branches.  
Coming up underneath the branch, I jumped back when a large arm suddenly fell down in front of my face!

After moving around it, I found that it belonged to Jango, hanging with the rest of him that had nearly fallen out through the door. Moving underneath him, I could see back up into the interior of the cabin. Jango was leaning with his back against the branch, while the rest of his body lay limp within the elevator. He was still out cold. As I craned my neck to look up over Jango's legs, I could just make out one of Yoda's pointed ears sticking up from the floor.

_'Where's Alec?_' I thought as I grabbed the door ledge to pull myself higher. As I did so, a small elevator chime ringed out through the undamaged speakers. I cocked an eyebrow in disbelief as I listened to what came next.

_"You have arrived. Please leave the cabin through the main exit, and enjoy your time on the Presidium. On behalf of Citadel Security and Transportation, we thank you for using SKYLIFT today."_

Before Avina could say anything else, a black gloved hand rose up from underneath Jango and Yoda. It extended its black talons and sank them into the control panel with the _SKYLIFT_ logo next to it, dragging downward and making five long gash marks in the wall. Sparks and frayed circuitry splashed out as Alec retracted his claws. I cleared my throat un-easily after that.  
"Uh...I take it you're not a fan," I said to the hand. (First dead people, now I'm talking to a hand.)

Over by Jango's foot, I heard Yoda grunt as he lifted himself up off of the floor, messaging the side of his head where he had been struck. He staggered over ontop of Jango, standing on the Mandalorian's chest as he took a look around the Presidium park we were in.  
"Arrived already we have?" he asked with a sort of half smile, taking in the sunny view of the lush trees and clear blue ponds just off to the side. He turned around and stretched out his hand, using the Force to lift up my brown sack from the back of the cabin, along with all the armour pieces that had fallen out of it. Concentrating harder, the Jedi put all the objects back into the sack and manipulated the small threading to re-seal itself, mending the tear that the shrapenel had caused.

"Find you will, everything inside accounted for I believe," said the Master as he floated the sack over towards me. Grabbing it from the air, I slipped the strap over my shoulder, being careful not to twist my torso too much. As Yoda jumped down onto the grass, I heard Alec make a weezing sound as he pulled himself out from under the heavy Mandalorian. Rubbing his head after getting crushed underneath Jango's jetpack, the Guardian cracked his neck in a few places before looking down to me.  
"Next time, we take a Transit Car," he said, pointing his finger up to the lines of cars in the sky.

All three of us had a long laugh at that, despite having nearly died just a few minutes ago. Alec shifted himself up into a semi-sitting position, but with Jango's legs still drapped over his lower half.  
Just then, as he tried pushing the rest of bounty hunter off of him, we heard a loud SNAP!. Suddenly the sound of breaking wood came from behind the cabin as one of the three main branches slowly fell out of sight, having broken under the cabin's weight. In the next second the cabin began falling backwards out of the tree!

"Get out!" I ordered Alec. I extended my hand up to him; but just as he tried to reach for me, the motion of the cabin caused Jango to slip off of his branch and fall straight ontop of me. I yelled out in pain as the Mandalorian landed heavily on my chest, pinning me to the ground.  
"Uh oh, AHHH!" I heard Alec shout as the elevator fell from the tree, crashing down into the large pond running just beside us. The resulting splash rained down on me, soaking all three of us as it dispersed everywhere.  
"Ugh! Get off me!" I shouted at the unconscious bounty hunter as I grabbed him be the neck, pushing his dead weight off to one side. Even though he couldn't hear me it was good to shout at something.

But it wasn't helping the pain I was now in, Jango's fall having caused my aching chest to flare up again, this time badly. I grunted through clenched teeth as I laid my ring hand on my chest, my soaked shirt sticking to my skin as I tried to ease the pain. Taking off his soaked robe, Yoda quickly came over, kneeling down beside me.  
Rubbing his hands together, a glowing blue light spread out from his palms as he leaned over me. Keeping just above me, he closed his eyes and moved his hands back and forth over my chest.  
"What are you doing?" I asked him, straining as the pain flared again for a brief second. Yoda didn't answer right away, he only gave a grim look as the light from his palms vanished. He placed his hand on my chest directly, giving a small "hum" before pulling away.  
"Two of your ribs have cracked, dangerously close to puncturing your lung one is," he said as he turned back to me. Looking back up to the sky, I winced as I tried to sit up. I knew from experience that I wasn't gonna to be able to do so without hurting myself even more. Off to the side I could hear the crowd of bystanders whispering to each other.

"I know, I need to get to get some..."  
I stopped dead in mid sentence. Something was happening to my chest; I could feel a soothing sensation spread out across my torso, dulling the sting of my cuts and the pain in my ribs.  
Yoda's eyes widened in wonder as he witnessed what was going on. Lifting my head up, the first thing I noticed was that the ring was glowing again. But there was more. The water that had soaked my shirt was being drawn out from the fabric, getting sucked into my bleeding cuts that were visible through the holes in my shirt.  
As I slowly got dryer, my injuries began to fade away, slowly turning white until vanishing completely. The burning inside my chest also receeded, followed by a few somewhat uncomfortable clicks as my bones mended together. The same thing was happening with my head, my hair that had also been soaked was now dry as well, all the water having gone into the cut I had gotten from the tomb.

The ring stopped glowing. I let out a sigh of relief as I pat myself down, making sure everything was fully healed.  
"Interesting...very interesting," Yoda said, mystified by what had happened. Standing up, I took a moment to twist my torso from side to side, stretching out the muscles in my chest to make sure everything was where is should have been. I laughed as I began flexing all my muscles, I felt better than ever! Not only were my wounds healed, but I felt rejuvinated, and stronger. I felt like I was 18 again.

Yoda smiled as he rung out his damp robe before putting it back on.  
"Appears it would, that water is a powerful ally to that ring," he said as he pointed up to my hand. I gazed at the silver band, focusing on the black circle carved into the center. (Great, now I've become a modern Percy Jackson)  
However I was drawn out of my thoughts when I heard a furious banging noise, coming from the elevator still sitting in the middle of the pond. Chuckling to myself, I waded into the water towards it, the pond only being ankle deep. When the elevator had fallen back, it landed with the shattered door facing up towards the sky. With no hand holes or anything for Alec to grab on to, he was understandibly trying to claw his way out in a rage.  
"Alright, alright, calm down!" I shouted up to the top of the cabin. Just then the banging stopped, followed by a low growling sound. I frowned as I backed away a few steps.

_'What's he doing in there?_'

"THATS IT!" was all I heard from inside, right before the entire cabin exploded apart! I staggered backwards as pieces and sparks were thrown in every direction, people screaming as larger chunks crashed near them. Smoke swirled in thick wisps around where the elevator had once been.  
But my attention wasn't on any of that, it was on the thing standing where the cabin had once been. Covered in thick black fur, and crouched with his mighty arms outstreched in either direction, was a 15 foot tall guerilla!  
Flashes of light went off from within the crowd as hundreds of people activated their omni tools in order to catch an image of the creature in front of them. Standing up to his new full height, Alec stared at them for a moment before letting out a mighty roar, causing the crowd to scream and back up a few steps as it echoed across the Presidium.

_'Now thats a sight,_' I thought, astonished, as I came up to him. Alec let out a small chuckle at the sight of the people gawking at him. He turned his head down to me, his large round eyes glowing silver, and he himself still looking a bit perturbed. "Seriously, I'm swearing off elevators from here on out!" he said in a deep gravely voice.

"Yo, King Kong, you're scaring people!" I shouted up to him, cupping a hand around my mouth. Alec shrugged, laughing again. Turing around, I walked back over to Yoda and Jango, Alec going down on his knuckles and walking up behind me like a real guerilla. As we came up next to the unconscious bounty hunter, I suddenly heard a familiar click.

"Freeze!" a man shouted over to us. All three of us shot our gaze over to a shaking C-Sec agent, who at the moment was pointing a Kessler pistol at us. My eyes widened as I recognised him, this was the same guy I had seen in Mass Effect 2, the one solving the dispute between Lia'Vael and that volus guy.

"Drop your weapons and shut down your hologram!" he shouted, pointing his gun back and forth between me and Alec. Immediately I reacted, snapping my hand out towards him as the ring lit up. Suddenly the weapon was wrenched out of his hands, flipping end over end as it came soaring into my outstretched palm.  
"Darth Vader moment!" Alec jibbed with a laugh. Looking over, I saw that he had changed back into his normal form, and at the moment had Jango slung over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Turning back to the agent, I flipped the gun around so that I was holding onto the barrel.

Holding my other hand up in a non-threatening gesture, I slowly walked up to the man as he slightly raised his hands in surrender.  
"Look, officer..." I began, stealing a glance at the small name tag on his uniform. "...Forsenski, I'm really sorry about this," I finished, stopping right in front of him as I tightened my grip on the barrel. Before Forsenski could say anything, I swiped the pistol upwards, using the butt of the weapon to catch the agent in the temple.  
A loud whack came as it made contact, sending Agent Forsenski to the ground. The entire crowd gasped in horror at this scene of brutality. (Don't worry people he's not dead)

"Hmmmm, out cold," said Alec in an aged sounding voice. I laughed as I turned around to them. "Yes Master Splinter," I answered back, having recognised the line from the Mutant Ninja Turtles. Suddenly however, as I took a step back towards the others, a painful ringing flared up in my ears.  
"Argh!" I said pain as I cupped one of my ears. The pain only lasted for a few moments, but that wasn't the main focus of what was happening.

Images raced past in front of my eyes. Blue prints for the Kessler pistol, its inner makings, how to use it properly, everything I had to know about it was suddenly being transferred into my mind. My head was a buzz of information, causing my forehead to ache as more was passed on. Finally it stopped. Rubbing my head with my free hand, I glanced down at my right that was holding the Kessler. Sure enough, the silver glow of the ring had just begun to fade away. I looked up at Alec, who had a knowing look to him.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, confused yet again as I raised the Kessler to get a better look at it.  
"The Guardians call it Mind Mending," Alec answered in a calm voice, he and Yoda coming over to me, Jango swaying a bit on Alec's shoulder.  
"All the information about an object can be imparted to you by simply pressing the ring against it and willing the knowledge to show itself," he continued. I nodded as I flipped the weapon from side to side, pressing a few of the buttons on each one, examining each of the different settings.  
"I know almost everything about it now," I said in amazement, still gazing at the weapon.  
Alec gave another smile as he continued. "It can also work for living things too, if you feel the need, you can read people's minds. Or, in emergencies, you can also pass on knowledge through Mind Mending."

I turned my eye back on him. "You're saying I can look into someone's thoughts?"  
Alec nodded. "As long as you can maintain physical contact, you can learn anything from anywhere, machine or organic or otherwise."

"But then what if I..." I began, when suddenly the familiar screech of engines came soaring overhead. The two Mantis gunships that had cornered us on the _SKYLIFT_ tack shot overhead, coming to a sharp hover as they encircled the park. Sirens from hover patrol cars could be heard in the distance as reinforcements cut through the Fast Transit lanes. The nearby crowd raised their voices to be heard over the sound of the repulsers as the gunships trained their main cannons onto us.

Laying Jango on the tiled pathway; me, Alec, and Yoda stood back to back with our hands raised slightly.

"_This has gone far enough Axel!"_ I heard Bailey's voice shout angrily over his loudspeaker. I groaned in annoyance as I facepalmed myself. _'My first hour here and I've already got the entire police force after me.'_  
"_Give yourselves up now! You're lucky no one was killed after that little stunt!"_  
"Bailey get a head on yourself, you know that wasn't us!" Alec shouted up to the lieutenant's gunship.  
"_Then you can fill me in on all the details, after we've made it back to the station_," Bailey said coldly, turning his cannon on Alec personally.

Far off to the side at the park entrance, hover cars began touching down on the gound. Dozens of armoured Turians stormed out of each, all armed with assault rifles. At the sight of them, the crowd began to split apart to allow them to pass. Dropping my arms, I quickly turned to the other two.  
"What're our options, we won't be able to help Shepard very well from C-Sec Academy," I said, glancing back at the appoaching army of agents. Alec cracked his knuckles with a devilish smile. "There _is_ always the old fashioned way," he suggested.  
"Maybe, but these are the good guys remember, if we kill them we'll either get killed in a station wide manhunt, or C-Sec will be down a couple dozen agents when Sovereign attacks," I said sternly. The thundering boots of the Turians were getting closer with each second.  
Brushing away the folds of his robes, Yoda drew out his lightsaber hilt. The silver device looked even more real in front of me than it did in the movies.

"Kill them them we cannot..." he said, readying his stance as all three of us turned to face the agents. Alec extended his claws on both hands, while I gripped Forsenski's Kessler with both of mine. The Turians had now reached the main body of the crowd, only a few dozen people seperated them from us.  
"But allow ourselves to be taken, we cannot either," he finished as he ignited the weapon. The sharp humming buzz of the device seemed to make the air around it vibrate, the bright white-green of the blade catching everyone's attention.  
The Turian's were shoving everyone aside now as they made their way towards us. I exhaled deeply as I brought up the pistol slightly.

_'This is it.'_

"WAIT A MINUTE!" Suddenly Alec retracted his claws, snapping his fingers as he did. I looked over my shoulder at him. On his face was the strangest look I had ever seen on someone. He looked like he had just reached an epiphany.  
"I got a better idea," he said over to me. Crossing over behind me and Yoda, he stood before the largest body of the crowd. There was a short pause. Then, stretching out his hands like he was addressing a mass audience, he made his voice boom out across the park.

"Thats right people! WE ARE INTERGALACTIC TERRORISTS!" he announced to the crowd.

_'WHAT?'_

**And they're BACK! Its been one hell of a long time since I updated, but I was finally able to piece together the time needed to finish this. To all my fans out there, again I am so sorry, everything under the sun came together to keep me from finishing this chapter. I'm also sorry that we're still not actually into the Mass Effect story yet. I thought for sure I would be able to get to it by the end of this chapter, but it came out longer than I expected, and I have a load of ideas that I don't want to try and mash all into one update. **  
**The next chapter however is going to be the best by far, its not only going to be loaded with action and yet more characters, but I swear on a stack of bibles that it will involve us in Shepard's quest.**  
**So here we are, Axel has finally returned! Give me some big rates and reviews on this one, and as a reward I will try to blow your minds as much as I can in the chapters to come. I got big plans for this story.**


	6. The Citadel's Most Wanted

**Now we're on to chapter six, I give you the creme de la creme of my story so far. So lets get it back into the action, with new characters, hoardes of fight sequences, and finally getting a look at Shepard!**

"Thats right people, _WE ARE INTERGALACTIC TERRORISTS_!"

_'WHAT?'_ I thought, absolutely bewildered.

Both Yoda and I looked at each other as we turned around, both of our faces wrinkled with a look of pure confusion. _'Did he seriously just _frame_ us?'_

However, instead of hearing screams or cries of terror, there was only an odd silence hanging over the park. It seemed like whatever Alec was trying to do to the crowd wasn't working. Instead, they all just stood there with surprised looks on their faces, whispering to themselves as they stared at him. (You know those moments where you hear crickets after saying something awkward, this was one of those)

Alec himself stood like he was frozen, his arms still raised and his devilish smile still on his face. After a few seconds his smile faltered and he turned his head slightly to me.

"Right, partner..." he said out of the corner of his mouth, still keeping his smile plastered for the crowd. "...we're terrorists, so lets _terrorize_."

Thats when I clued in. I took a quick look around the crowd. There were easily over five hundred people jammed within the park, and only a few dozen agents to restore order if they got out of contol. Behind me the Turians finally broke through the crowd, marching straight towards us.  
"Hands up!" ordered their commander to us, a very large dark-skinned Turian with red tribal markings on his face.

In the split second I had, I knew what I needed to do. Before anyone could react, I quickly pointed the Kessler up to the sky and fired!

Immediately the crowd screamed, many ducking their heads while hundreds of others skattered for cover. The entire park roared alive with the thunder of running feet and panicked shouting. The Turians quickly raised their weapons, their sights zeroing in on our chests. But before they could take a shot at us they were suddenly blocked and then trampled by a stampede of terrified merchants as the mob broke off for the park's exits! Me and Yoda began dodging out of the way as hoards of people began driving past us, desperate to get away from the self proclaimed _"terrorists"._

"Party time!" I barely heard Alec shout over the chaos. Opening his mouth wide, he sucked in a lungful of air, and immediately let out a monsterous inhuman roar, sounding a lot like the T-Rex from _Jurassic Park_. Whatever fear I had stirred in the crowd with my shot had now turned into pure insanity as Alec continued to roar out across the park. The mob of people had now been whipped into a frenzy! Instead of obeying the orders being shouted by the struggling C-Sec agents, the crowd began fighting their way _through_ the Turians, pushing them to the ground or shoving them out of the way as more and more people dashed for the exits, screaming as they did.

I had just started a riot on the Presidium!

That had taken care of the agents on the ground, but it still left Bailey's gunships circling overhead.  
_"You're gonna fry for this Axel!"_ Bailey's voice said over his loudspeaker. All around us the crowd was beginning to thin out as more people ran from our area. We were now more exposed, giving Bailey and the other Mantis a clear shot! Up above, the cannons on the gunships glowed orange, preparing to fire.

"YODA!" I shouted over to the Jedi. With his lightsaber still active, the Master launched up onto my back, immediately springboarding himself off my shoulder and into the air between me and the Echo 2 gunship. The Mantis opened fire on the alien before he had even hit the ground.

With almost blurred movements, Yoda began deflecting the shots with lightning precision. He spun and twisted from side to side, moving like an acrobat as he sliced his white-green blade back and forth all around him in intricate movements, richoceting the blasts back towards the general area of the ship. As Yoda fought next to me, I heard a low whining sound coming from the second Mantis as it charged up its own cannon. Spinning around to face Bailey's ship, I quickly dive-rolled out of the way as he fired a furious barrage onto the pathway, shooting out a hail of thermal rounds that churned the tiling I had just been standing on into a huge mass of dents!

Off to the side, Echo 2 stopped shooting to quickly re-position farther away from the saber wielding Jedi. The ship's black hull was also dented from several of the blasts Yoda had been able to deflect back at it. As the Jedi Master landed a few yards away from me, he called over his shoulder while still keeping his lightsaber held out in front of him.  
"Firing concussive rounds, these ships appear to be!" Echo 2 opened fire again, nearly cutting the Master off before he sprang back into the air, spinning in blurred circles as he deflected each shot

Glancing over at the dented tiling just next to me, I gave a quick nod as I understood. "They wanna take us alive! And they want to do it without killing any civilians!"  
Up above, the lieutenant's gunship rotated to face me again.  
_"Alright, switch the rounds to a higher setting, make this guy...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"_ began Bailey, right before turning his gunship to face something thundering off to my left.

Looking over my shoulder while crouched on one knee, I saw Alec charging towards Bailey, having grown back into his giant gorilla form. With each bound of his knuckles, the tiled pathway cracked underneath him as the whole park shook from his movements. People dived in either direction to get out of his way as he closed the distance between himself and the gunship. Coming to a jarring stop next to a large chunk of the _SKYLIFT_ elevator cabin, he grabbed hold of the debris with his mighty hands, heaving it up before him.

_"Switch Incindiaries!"_ Immediately Bailey opened up, firing a continuous rain of flaming red thermal rounds upon the Guardian. Quickly I threw myself onto my stomach, covering my head as stray shots wizzed over top of me.

The majority of the blasts made their marks, hitting Alec in the torso and legs, while the piece of elevator he held shielded his face.  
"ARGGHHH!" Alec roared in pain as the rounds tore into him, making him bare his sharp ape teeth as he staggered from the blows. The debris he held had now become riddled with holes, smoking in his hands. The wounds on his body glowed bright white for a moment, healing immediately after each round hit him.  
"ALEC!" I shouted up to him, still keeping my arms over my head as I tried to be heard over the earsplitting buzz of Bailey's cannon. Even though I knew he was immortal, the sight of him getting hit by hundreds of high velocity rounds was more than enough to make me doubt his powers.

But that doubt was to be un-founded, for as soon as I thought it, Alec began laughing that same hysterical laugh he had used back when he had been fighting the Ogre.  
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT!" He shouted up at Bailey, his laugh ringing out clearly over the sound of the cannon.

Suddenly the barrage stopped.

Lifting my head up from the tiled pathway, I looked up at Bailey's gunship. The cannon was glowing red hot and steaming, with the metal being partially melted in some places.  
_'He's overheated it,'_ I thought as I quickly stood up. Over by me, Alec growled in effort as he lifted the smoking elevator piece out in front of him, extending his arms to their full length. With a subtle pivot of his hand like feet, he began spinning in a circle, using the extra weight of the debris to gain more momentum.  
"Alec..._NO_!" I shouted, ducking down low to avoid getting hit by his arms. But the Guardian gorilla roared over my voice, spinning for the third time before letting go of his burden.

The piece of elevator was flung from his hands, spinning like a frisbee as it shot straight up at Bailey's windshield!  
_"Shit! Break right, BREAK RIGHT!"_ Bailey shouted as the Mantis veered off in the direction he wanted. But it wasn't fast enough. The spinning debris came in like a speeding locamotive, smashing into the gunship's left wing and tearing off its repulser. The ship jerked hard to the left as sparks and black smoke erupted from its damaged components. The Mantis soon began spinning in circles, the loss of its second wing offsetting the balance of the entire ship.

_"Mayday, mayday! We are going down!"_ shouted Bailey as the Mantis lost alttitude, spinning out of contol as it came crashing down into one of the many ponds along the pathway. The people still running by us screamed again as they scattered in different directions, all covering their heads as the ship crashed near them. A small explosion of water splashed outward as the machine drove into the ground, carving a track mark in the pond's metal flooring before it came to a screeching stop, losing all power as it did.

"Uh oh..." Alec gasped quietly beside me, his glowing silver eyes wide, obviously shocked at what he had just done.  
"You could have killed them!" I shouted up to him as I stood back up to my full height, pushing back the sack still slung across my shoulders.  
"I...I was just trying to...make him back off," Alec stuttered as he shrugged his huge shoulders while making nervous hand gestures, unsure of what to say.

Suddenly an explosion rang out behind us. Both of us shot our heads over to see the other gunship still battling with Yoda. In the middle of the pathway was a black, shallow smoking crater, thanks to Echo 2 having fired off one of its missiles. At the moment it was now firing its main cannon down at the saber wielding Jedi, while he continued to jump back and forth in intricate movements, deflecting or dodging each blast thrown at him.

The Mantis stopped firing for a moment, cooling down their weapons to keep from having the same problem as Bailey. Yoda landed in a crouch with his lightsaber extended behind him, panting a bit as a streak of sweat rolled down his forehead. He wasn't showing signs of giving out yet, but deflecting that many shots was certainly beginning to wind him.  
"Go help him while I get Bailey out!" I shouted back up to Alec as Echo 2 began firing again.  
"Go it," he said with a nod as he jumped overtop of me, cracking the tiling and scaring the people even more as he smashed down next to Yoda.

Slipping Forsenski's Kessler into my belt, I began shoving my way past the screaming people, dashing over to the pond where Bailey's Mantis had crashed. Taking off my sack, I threw it to the side as I stormed through the water, coming up to the vehicle's blacked out windshield.

Being in water again, I closed my eyes briefly and drew upon the same power I had felt when the ring had healed me. The band glowed silver, and soon I felt a growing strength rising up through the soles of my feet, spreading into every fiber of my body. Snapping my eyes open, and with the ring still glowing, I grabbed hold of the clamps holding the canopy in place.

Amazingly, and with only a slight effort, I slowly twisted the mechanisms until they broke free of the ship with a sharp crack, giving me access to the canopy itself. I smiled widely at my new found strength, having hardly felt any strain on my muscles.  
_'This will definately come in handy later on.'_

Hooking my fingers underneath and grabbing hold of the material firmly, I heaved upwards. The sound of breaking metal groaned in protest as I tore the canopy away from the windshield, tearing a large hole in the material as I made an easy new entrance into the cockpit.  
But immediately I had to throw a hand in front of my face, as I was barraged by a hail of sparks and a blast of black smoke.

"Bailey!" I shouted into the smoke, covering my mouth with my arm somewhat.  
"He's in the back..." came a weak voice after a few coughs. Looking into the front seat, I found a man dressed in a black flight suit and matching helmet.  
_'This guy must to be the pilot,'_ I thought as I reached in and tore off the man's safety harness.  
"My leg..." he said in pain through clenched teeth, holding the said limb to keep it in place. Slipping a hand behind his back and one under his legs, I gently lifted the injured man out of the cockpit semi-bridal style, making sure not to move his leg too much. After sitting him down in the cool water with his back leaning against the gunship, I climbed inside to look for Bailey.

I didn't have to go far, Bailey was sitting in front of the console just behind the pilot's area. He was slumped back in his seat, with his face obscured by the darkness and swirling smoke of the cockpit. Frayed cables and torn panels were strewn all over the place, forcing me to brush them aside as I came up over the future Captain's body. From what I could see, he had changed out of his armour into his usual dark black and purple T-shirt and cargo pants I had first seen him wearing in the game.

The glow from the ring was only illuminating a limited area around us, forcing me to bring my hand over top of him to see how badly he was injured. As the pale silver light lit up his face, I could make out a darkening bruise on the left side of his head, along with a large gash just above his eyebrow. Streams of dark blood trickled down the side of his face, blending in with several scratches he had recieved to his cheek.

As I hooked my arm underneath his legs to lift him out the same way I had done with the pilot, I suddenly felt a hand grabbing my torn shirt by the collar. Putting the ring back over his face, I could see that the lieutenant's eyes had opened slightly.  
_"You..."_ he said in a raspy tone, making no attempt to hide the venom in his voice. Immediately I grabbed him by the wrist he was holding me by, causing him to wince in pain as I pryed his hand away from me.  
"Bailey...I'm here to get you out," I said sternly, keeping my hand locked on his arm to stop him from making a grab for the side-arm that was holstered on his belt. Outside I could hear another explosion, mixed with another ape like roar from Alec. I shook my head at the irony, this was surely not helping to convince the captain.

"Lieutenant, please just listen to me, we never intended to cause this kind of trouble," I said, as I quickly used my other hand to reach over and snatch his modified pistol from its holster. His eyes flashed as he tried pulling his arm away from me, glancing at his weapon as I slid it under my belt beside Alexandre's flintlock and James Forsenski's Kessler. For some reason his other arm lay limp at his side, similar to how Jango's had when he had been pointing his blaster at me.  
_'Probably broken as well,'_ I thought.

"You assault my men and bring down my ship, now you expect me to believe you're not intending to cause trouble here?" the lieutenant scoffed. I hesitated before nodding a bit to myself, half agreeing with his point.  
"Trust me, I'm gonna be having a talk with my friend after this."  
"It doesn't matter Axel! You and your friends are still on the run from justice; if you try to leave the station, C-Sec has orders to shoot you right out of the sky!" Bailey snapped angrily as he ripped his hand free of my grasp. But to his surprise I suddenly grabbed him by the collar with both hands, sharply pulling him up out of his seat so we could see eye to eye. The lieutenant cried out in pain as his injured arm was yanked from its resting place.

"Look, _Captain America_, I'm on a mission to help keep this galaxy from getting HARVESTED! But guess what, I can't do that when I have you and half the damn station running after me!" I shouted at him, tightening my grip on his shirt with each word, coming within an inch of choking the man.  
My frustration was clearly spilling into my words, causing me to say them with a lot more bite than I was intending. But right now I didn't care, I wanted the lieutenant to get the message; I was sick and tired of having an army of C-Sec's finest chasing me down.

However, Bailey didn't look angry anymore, in fact he looked surprised.  
"What did you call me?" he asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion, as if I had just said something familiar to him. I shook him angrily, trying to get him to focus.  
"Are you listening? There are worse things out there than what you saw in Ward D, stop chasing me or else everyone's chances of surviving the next three years are going to be very slim!" Suddenly another explosion rang out, along with new waves of screams from the crowd roaring up from outside, causing both me and Bailey to shoot a look over at the hole in the canopy. After a second we both turned back to each other.

"So...if I let you go, what happens next?" he asked in a cold tone, almost as if he were expecting me to shoot him at any moment. I took a short pause before responding.  
"I'm sorry, but I'm out of time to explain..." I answered. With one quick motion, I pulled back my right fist and swiped the lieutenant hard in the left side of the head! The blow struck Bailey with a hard smack, right in the center of the dark bruise he had gotten from the crash. The lieutenant staggered backwards, grunting in pain as he lost consciousness, while my other hand kept his now limp form from falling to the floor.

"Believe me, you'll thank me for this one day," I said as I bent down and heaved the dead weight of the sleeping officer over my shoulder, being careful not to hit his head or his broken arm on anything as I stood up and spun around in the confined cockpit. Keeping low, both me and Bailey moved through the frayed cables towards the hole I had torn in the metal canopy, again being careful as I stepping out and dropping down into the pond next to the sitting pilot.

"How is he?" the pilot asked as I landed next to him, still holding his injured leg. Gently I slid Bailey off my shoulder, laying him down next to the pilot with his back leaning against the hull of the Mantis.  
"He's gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up...but he should be fine," I said as I turned around and began making my way over to where I had thrown my sack.

Off to my left, Echo 2 was still shooting at Yoda, who at the moment had just dodged out of its line of fire. Beside him, Alec, who was still in his giant ape form, ripped out one of the large trees nearby. Heaving it above his head, he threw it up at the gunship like a throwing knife, making it spin end over end as it came closer to the ship.  
However, the pilot of Echo 2 was a lot better at manouvering the Mantis than Bailey had been, easily dodging the projectile.

It truly looked like a scene from King Kong now. The Mantis began firing its cannon again, each blast catching Alec in the chest. But instead of going down, he only seemed to be getting angrier.  
As the cannon stopped to cool down again, he let out a monsterous roar as he beat his chest viciously with his fists. Off to the side, the army of trampled Turian agents were still trying to pick themselves back up, but the massive mob of people had barely thinned out in their area, still screaming and fighting their way past as they tried to escape. And with the thundering battle going on between Alec and the gunship, it was only making everyone that much more determined to fight for their safety.

Dashing my way towards the battle, I came up next to the tree that had saved me after my fall from the elevator. Quickly I extended my left hand out towards it, clenching my fingers sharply. The ring lit up as I began drawing upon its power.  
A series of cracks came as the trunk was crushed down by its base. Splinters and roots broke apart as I ripped the vegetation from its stump.

But this kind of exertion was new to me, even with the power of the ring, the weight of the tree was becoming too much for my untrained mind, forcing me to use both hands to levitate it into the air. I could feel my muscles bulging; I bared my teeth with my face strained in concentration as I slowly rotated the tree horizontally, feeling like I was trying to hold up a large crate of cedar blocks. The tree seemed to gently bob up and down as if it were floating in water.

Up in front of me the Mantis opened fire again. Alec roared as he jumped in front of Yoda, taking the full brunt of the cannon to give the Jedi some breathing time.  
"Heads up!" I called over to Alec. He shot me a hurried glance, giving a painful nod as he continued jerking backwards. Painfully pulling my left arm back like I was holding a spear, I steadied myself for a moment before snapping my hand forward with as much force as I could.  
I roared out as my strength left me, the hovering tree blasting forward like it had been shot from a cannon, shooting straight up at the Mantis.

"Look out!" cried the pilot over the loudspeaker as the gunship tried to bank away. But this time _my_ throw was too fast for it. The tree smashed into the side of the cockpit, shattering into a million pieces as it dented the hull. The ship spun violently to the side, as if it had just been round-house kicked in the face. (Chuck Norris reference anybody?)

Wood chippings rained down on the pathway and on the scattering crowd as the gunship began trying to right itself, not intent on suffering the same fate as Bailey had. Luckily the larger pieces of the tree landed farther off in the ponds or in places were the crowd had fought their way out of.

I staggered forward a little, panting from the amount of effort it had taken me to throw my projectile. Quickly I looked over to Alec and Yoda. The Guardian had turned back into his normal form, and at the moment was crawling over the cracked tiling on his hands and knees, looking like he was going to be sick. Yoda had deactivated his lightsaber and was kneeling next to him, trying to keep him from falling on his face.

Slowly rotating in a circle, I serveyed around the scenery for a moment, taking in every detail of the mad chaos. Right now Bailey was out of the fight, Echo 2 was still spinning in harsh circles as the pilot tried to regain control, and about fifty feet in front of me the Turians were still busy trying to break out of the frightened crowd.

_This_ was the moment we had been waiting for to make ourselves disappear.

Pushing the sack behind me, I ran over to the other two, having to weave around a massive Elcor diplomat who was charging towards the pile up of citizens and Turians. (Yeah I know, hard to believe, but those guys can move when they want to)

"Alec, are you alright?" I said as I kneeled down beside him, helping Yoda get him up to his feet. Alec staggered as if he were drunk, leaning heavily on me with one arm as he laid a hand on his re-armoured chest.  
"That..._hurt_!" he managed to say. Keeping him steady, I suddenly remembered that we were forgetting something, or rather someone. Looking over to where I had ripped out the tree, I could see Jango still laying in the middle of the tiled pathway, covered in broken leaves and branches. Luckily it didn't seem like the crowd had trampled him in their mad dash to get away.

"I know you're not feeling up to it right now, but we need you to focus to help us get out of here," I said in his ear to be heard over the screaming. Instantly Alec let go of me and straightened up with a mad smile on his face.  
"Why didn't you say so, lets move!" he said with an insane laugh as he ran over to Jango. Both me and Yoda rolled our eyes as the Jedi Master quickly jumped up onto my back, while I followed after my other companion.

Alec easily lifted Jango from the ground and slung him over his shoulder as we both began running, vaulting over the larger fallen tree branches on our way towards the dark Market corridor on the other side of the park. From this distance we could see the other half of the crowd that had scatterd in this direction, along with the glowing signs and advertisement boards for many different shops inside. The sound of running feet and some people screaming could be heard echoing off the walls.

_"STOP!"_ came an angered shout from behind us. We all glanced back to see four of the Turian agents chasing us, having broken through the majority of the terrified civilians. Each had their assualt rifles raised as they ran at full speed to catch up to us, knocking over any stray citizens that got in their way.

"Thats our que, move!" I barked as both me and Alec barged into the crowd, shoving our way through people as the mob stampeded into the corridor.

Inside it looked a lot like the Zakera Ward from Mass Effect 2. All the walls were a glow with dark contrasting colours, mostly consisting of purples, dark reds, and yellows. Screens and names flashed by as we ran, continuing to put more and more people between us and the Turians as we shoved through. Some people screamed and parted away as they recognised us, breaking off towards the stores that ran along either wall. Everything was a blur, some things looked familiar while others looked completely alien.

"Axel, this way!" I heard Alec shout. Looking over to him as I side stepped around a fleeing Volus, I saw him pointing far up ahead to an alleyway leading in between two _Seronis Application_ stores. Behind us, the Turians were shouting over top of the crowd's screams as they shoved their way past, knocking over plants, furniture and other people running along the stores as they tried to keep up with us.

"They are gaining!" I heard Yoda say into my ear.  
Reaching out, I sharply grabbed hold of a large potted tree set up in the middle of the corridor. While still running, I dragged it down behind me, making it smash onto the floor in front of the Turians as they broke through behind us.  
One of the agents tripped over the trunk as he tried to make a grab for me. As their comrade smashed face first into the floor, the other three vaulted over him, continuing the chase.

Tightening his grip on Jango with his right arm, Alec used his left hand to reach for his belt and draw one of the bounty hunter's blasters that he had taken back in the elevator. Despite us still being at a breakneak run and trying to weave our way through the crowd, Alec took aim at an oncoming display sign hanging overhead.  
With a small squeeze of the trigger, he fired two blasts at both of the chain links keeping the sign attached to the ceiling.

The crowd screamed and scattered yet again as the chains exploded in a flash of sparks.  
"Road block!" shouted Alec with a laugh as we both dashed undernearth before the scorched links broke apart. The sign dropped like a stone as two of the Turians closed the distance, coming down right in front of them. The two agents plowed straight into the obstable, the screen shattering as it smashed against both their bodies.

But even _that_ wasn't enough. As both of them crashed to the floor in a heap of debris, the Turian commander and the other agent I had tripped farther back came charging past them, still continuing the chase.

This time the commander wasn't playing games. With his assualt rifle draw, he held it up by his shoulder and fired off a shot into the ceiling. The still screaming crowd parted away from him and the other agent, given them a clear shot at us.  
Quickly I drew the Kessler from my belt. Stopping for a fraction of a second, I took aim and fired at a large silver fire extinguisher hanging from an emergency station on the wall to my right. The extinguisher exploded behind me, sending a thick blast of white mist briefly in between me and the Turians, keeping them from shooting us in the back.

_'Come on, where is it?'_ I kept asking myself, speeding up my pace to catch up with Alec. We were close enough to our escape route that the mass of bodies was obscuring my vision, forcing me to begin looking for other land-marks to tell us where exactly the entrance to the alley was.  
Finally a break formed in the wall of running people, the two signs for the _Seronis Application_ stores glowed yellow up above us as we neared the alley that would get us out of this corridor.

"You ready?" I heard Alec call over as we slipped back into the mob, obscuring the C-Sec agents' vision once again. I looked over and gave him a quick nod; immediately Alec threw his weight to the side, forcing his way past several humans and Salarians, and cutting us a path towards the alley. Keeping our heads low as we cut across the crowd, we quickly broke through and dodged into the alleyway as the Turians pushed aside a few Asari to get to where we had once been.  
"After them!" I heard the commander shout.

Immediately we began sprinting at the fastest speed we could manage. The stomping clicks of our SS jackboots echoed loudly in the confined space, sounding like an entire platoon of Nazis were charging along with us. As we ran past trash compactors and glowing orange lights, I could hear the shouts of the Turians as the crowd continued to bar them from pursuing us.  
It gave me some relief that we were now able to move freely without having to duck and weave through hysterical civilians. But unfortunatley that also meant there was nothing to keep the agents from zeroing in on us once they finally cut through the mob!

"Over here!" called Alec over his shoulder, diving into a narrower side alley off to our left.  
_'We gotta lose these guys soon!'_ I thought to my self as I put more power into my legs, the sound of the Turians finally breaking into the alley could be heard farther down behind me. Running in right behind him, I suddenly skidded to a stop by a larger trash compactor.

"Hold on!" I said sharply. Before he was out of reach, I grabbed Alec by the collar of his uniform and yanked him backwards, throwing both of us in behind the machine. With the compactor being large enough to hide all four of our bodies, we squeezed as tight as we could to ensure we were completely hidden from view. Slowly, I pulled out Bailey's modified pistol, ready for the Turians to catch up. Sweat rolled down my forehead as I took in several deep lungfulls of air, trying the best I could to calm my rapidly beating heart. Remembering my field training, I slowly relaxed my neck and shoulder muscles, all the while steadying my breathing as I tightened my grip on the handle. Rapid boot falls soon began echoing throughout our alley as the Turians stormed around the corner.

All three of us held our breath, not daring to move.

Suddenly the Turian commander blew past us, holding his rifle by his waist. Right behind him were the other two we had used the sign trick on. As those three continued speeding down the rest of the alley, I could hear the fourth speaking into a radio as he thundered down after them.

"Copy that, we are in pursuit of suspects, currently entering the Market District alleyways, sector 24!" said the fourth agent as he ran past us, going full speed in order to catch up to the rest of his squad. Even through the deep orange lighting that bathed the entire alleyway, I could make out several dark smudge prints along his back where the crowd had trampled him.

"Now's our chance, go!" I whispered sharply to Alec, keeping my eyes on the fading Turian as he disappeared from view. Alec shifted Jango slightly as he quickly ran back towards the alley we had just come from. Still keeping my eyes down the corridor, I slid Bailey's pistol back under my Luger belt before following close behind my companion.

Sticking both our heads out into the corridor, we made sure the coast was clear before entering. Immediately we broke back into a full sprint down the alley, trying to cover as much ground as we could to keep any C-Sec reinforcements from finding us.

Finally, after knocking over a Drell citizen who was trying to take a short cut, and scaring the living day lights out of a number of homeless people sitting along the walls, we saw the exit in sight. By now I was panting badly, running at full speed with Yoda on my back and a heavy sack around my shoulders was more than enough to take the wind out of me.

"Okay...okay, hold up," I said through laboured breaths, coming to a sluggish stop near the exit. I was used to covering long distances while carrying over fifty pounds of equipment, most times in the hot desert sun as well, but that was usually while I was marching.  
Having to go at a constant sprint with that same weight was tiring even for me. Ahead of us the exit opened up into another store filled Zakera looking corridor, filled with the same dark lighting and glowing signs over head. Several merchants and traders of various races could be seen mingling about in front of the many open doorways that led into the stores.  
Most were Volus or Asari, with a few Turians, Salarians and Humans mingling about socially at the resturaunts placed intermitently around the Corridor.

Leaning forward, I placed my hands on my knees, breathing deeply to recover my strength. Yoda easily jumped off my back, coming to a soft landing beside me as he gave me some breathing space. Just opposite of me, Alec grunted as he gently leaned forward, letting Jango slide off of his shoulder as he set him down to lean against the wall.  
"Looks like these guys haven't gotten the general alarm yet," said Alec with a chuckle as he stretched out his sore back muscles, all the while observing the people that walked past us.

I took in another deep breath before standing up straight to stretch out my legs. "They will soon, now that we're the Citadel's Most Wanted!" I said, an erritated tone clearly evident in my voice.

Yoda had a slightly worried look on his face as I came to stand next to him, focusing my gaze on the merchants on the other side of the Corridor.  
"Anger will not help you Axel. Cloud your senses and confuse you it will," Yoda said in a grim tone as he stared up at me. I sighed as I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to dull everything that was going through my head.  
"I know, I just wish we weren't having to run for our lives right now," I said, my tone unchanged as I began looking over each shop, trying to find something that might help us.

For some reason I just felt so annoyed about everything that was happening, and it was making me want to break something to ease my frustration.

Alec cleared his throat a little as he adjusted his samurai armour. "Well...its not _all_ bad when you look at it."

At that moment something in me flared at his comment, something bad.

Barely taking notice of it however, I only scoffed in astonishment at Alec's statement, turning around to face him with both hands on my hips.  
"_Really_? Lets take a look at it then..." I began sarcastically as I raised a fist. "...We resisted arrest during a high level lockdown, we destroyed public property, assualted a C-Sec agent..." I continued, extending a finger for each of the offenses I had commited after only an hour after my landing on the Citadel.  
All the while Alec kept trying to say something, but I continued to cut him off with each new addition to our record. Yoda on the other hand was leaning against a trash compactor with an amused look on his face.

"Now, lets add what we just did in the last ten minutes. We declared our intentions to commit _terrorist_ actions, and then did just that by bringing down an entire Citadel gunship..." I continued, still counting off on my fingers. Alec gave a slight sheepish grin at the last two accounts, muttering "touche" under his breath.  
"...and now we've assaulted a C-Sec _officer_..." I said finally, my face scowling as I realized my antics had only gotten us even higher on C-Sec's priority list. Now I was really beginning to get angry. I rubbed my forehead as I paced back and forth, mentally chastising myself over how stupid I had been back in the park.

Meanwhile Alec and Yoda were exchanging glances, Alec looking confused, while Yoda had now taken on a grave expression.  
"Wait, you did what?" the Guardian asked finally, having had to back track through my last statement a few times.  
"Bailey, when I went in to get him from the Mantis, I had to knock him out to get him to come quietly," I began quickly, still pacing. Alec looked shocked, and for some reason he was the one who looked mildly amused now.

Coming up to pace back and forth along side me, Alec made a show of trying to concentrate.  
"I was only thinking about getting him out of the wreckage at the time, but now we'll be lucky if he doesn't give us a firing squad when he catches us," I said over to the Guardian, who at the moment was dramatically rubbing his temples in mock concentration.

"Sooooooo wait, let me get this straight, you slugged out the future Commander of C-Sec?"

"Yes...wait, _WHAT!_?" You could have heard a record player screech as it stopped in mid song.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes wide with a completely dumbfounded expression. Alec walked a few steps ahead before turning around to face me, his face now completely amused at my own look of shock. I knew Bailey would become a Captain two years from now, but not Commander of C-Sec.

"Say that again?" I demanded, my eyes still wide as I took a step closer, now very intent on Alec's explaination.  
Alec chuckled a bit at my reaction.  
"I've got your memories, _remember_. In the graphic novel _Mass Effect: Inquisition_, Ambassador Udina sends Bailey to investigate Executor Pallin on charges of suspicious activities. But in the end it leads to Bailey having to shoot Pallin in self defense, killing him and thus getting promoted to C-Sec Commander for the Council."

I shook my head, both in disbelief and to clear the fogginess from my brain. Without thinking I grabbed Alec hard by the shoulders, my mouth hanging open slightly while my face was frozen with a look of dread.  
"So you're telling me, that the man I just punched out back there, is going to be put in charge of the entire Citadel Security Force!" My voice was beginning to tremble with fury.

I could feel that same weird feeling flaring in my forehead, something strange was happening to me.

"Well...I.I wouldn't..." he began with a slightly uncomfortable look, trying his best to down play the severity of what he was implying. But he'd already gone too far, the ramifications of my actions against Bailey were now looking more and more harsh as I continued thinking about it.

"I remember skimming over _Inquisition_, but I don't recall anything that mentions Bailey killing Pallin..." I began, my agitation at this whole thing was making my grip tighten on Alec's shoulders.  
The feeling in my head was now spreading to the rest of me, causing me to feel enraged and almost feverish at the same time. A minute ago I had been huffing and puffing from exhaustion, but now my heart was beating wildly, and my temper was clearly flaring along with it.

The Guardian winced slightly at the new strength behind my grasp, no longer holding an amused look about him, but now one that showed he was regretting having brought up Bailey's future.  
"Well...it _is_ possible that I may be remembering things you've forgotten," he said, unconsciously trying to pry himself away from the near bleeding death grip I had him in.

"...you're telling me that the man chasing us, a man who may now be willing to _kill_ us, is going to be placed in command of over _Two...Hundred...Thousand COPS_!" I shouted in his face, putting a heavy emphasis on the numerical amount as I slammed Alec hard into the wall across from me.

Yoda's grave look turned to one of alarm and caution, coming over slowly beside us. I glanced down at the Master, and wasn't surprised to see him in a slight defensive stance. Obviously he too was taking my sudden mood swing as odd.  
As Alec was flattened against the wall, he looking past me with his gaze set off into space, his face set in a mixture of anxiety and confusion. His pupils twitched back and forth as if he were searching his memory for something. Finally he spoke, somewhat timidly.

"Is that really how many there are?"

_"SON OF A BITCH!"_ I nearly screamed at the top of my lungs, my sudden super fueled anger causing the ring to flare up a deep scarlet red. Suddenly my vision became a blurry haze, coloured by a red tinge. Without thinking, or even feeling for that matter, I drew my arm back in the blink of an eye and slammed my fist into the wall next to Alec's head!  
The Guardian slightly jerked to the side as my fist made a large dent in the metal. Several people walking by began looking toward the alleyway with alarmed looks at the loud outbursts coming from within.

As I pulled my hand out of the dent, I suddenly felt Alec grabbing me by the collar of my torn shirt.  
"Snap out of it!" I heard him shout. But his voice was different now, almost sounding as if he were shouting underwater. As I turned my attention back to him, he no longer looked afraid of me, he was the one who now looked angry, and also very concerned. Drawing his right arm across him, he swiped his entire hand across my cheek, back slapping me hard in the face.  
Combined with the force of his arm and the fact that he was wearing black leather gloves, the sharp stinging in my face was enough to return my vision to normal and bring me back to my senses.  
Looking back at my hand, I saw the last of the scarlet disappear from the ring.

Suddenly I felt dizzy, and very tired.  
I could feel both Yoda and Alec holding on to me as I somewhat lost my balance. Massaging my forehead, I looked over at Alec. He wasn't angry anymore, but he still had that concerned look on his face.

"What was that? I felt like I wanted to kill someone," I asked groggily, still rubbing my head. I could now feel a gentle sensation passing over me as my anger faded away, bringing me back to a state of calmness as I slowly began to regain my strength.

"That was the _Rage_. When the ring feels that the Bearer is overly exhausted, it will infuse you with a surge of power in order for you to recover your strength," Alec said, still holding onto my arm in case I had a relapse. I wedged my eyes shut tight, now my headache felt even worse as my adrenaline level began to drop too.  
"Really? That was the most draining second wind I've ever had," I stated sacrastically. After a minute Alec and Yoda both let go of me as I regained my balance.

"The _Rage_ is brought on when the Bearer is both exhausted and angered at the same time, it boosts the anger they're feeling and turns it into a weapon, but only for a short time. Afterwards you'll be left feeling drained and exhausted for a few moments," Alec continued.  
Still rubbing my head somewhat, I glanced over into the Corridor. There were still a few people giving off glances towards the alleyway, along with a few store merchants whispering to each other as they stared in our direction. Luckily the deep orange lighting that illuminated the alleyway must have been enough to shadow our faces from view.

Slowly I was beginning to feel better, my strength was returning, and my anger had almost disappeared entirely.  
"So if I'm in a fight and the ring feels that I'm losing, it'll send me Berserk for a short time?" I asked as I turned back to my companions, dropping my hand as my headache receeded. Alec looked unsure, his previous look of concern was still etched on his face.  
"In short yes, but most of the previous Bearers always had to summon the Rage to aid them in battle, there were only a few, like you, that it seemed to come to naturally," he said again, glancing back and forth between me and the ring.

I took another glance down at the ring before looking back up at him.  
_'What is he so worried about?'_ I thought with a slight frown.  
"So that's good then, I can draw on the Rage without having to exert myself, that could be useful if I'm in a fight," I said. Suddenly Alec grabbed my shoulder, not hard like he would if he were angry, but firmly, more as a way to better convey his point.

"_No_! This is bad Axel. This is just another way the ring is trying to test you. If you use the _Rage_ too much you'll eventually become dependent on it; you'll literally be addictied to your own anger! And then, if you use it past that point, you'll end up needing to use it simply to _live_!" Alec was uttering his words as if they were a command, mixing them with an extreme sense of urgency, almost as if he were pleading with me at the same time. I simply looked at him with a perplexed expression.  
"You saw what just happened, the _Rage_ _does_ give you power, but it makes you lose control of your better half at the same time." Alec was staring at me intently in the eye, his hand squeezing my shoulder lightly.

A familiar 'hum' came from beside us.  
"Much like the _Dark Side_ this _Rage_ is, if not controlled properly, consume you it will," said Yoda as he rubbed his chin, staring at the ring with narrowed eyes. I looked over to the Master and was thankful to see that he had dropped his defensive stance.

"Exactly," answered Alec as he and I turned back to each other.  
"If this is so dangerous for someone from my time, wouldn't this have driven the ancient Bearers insane?" I asked in shock, looking back at the ring as I took in this new revelation.

Alec lowered his head slowly, his gaze no longer meeting mine.

"_It did_..." he uttered quietly, almost with a tone of regret in his voice.

"In the ancient times, the _Rage_ was able to take over many of the Bearers who couldn't control themselves while using it. And those that were strong enough barely knew the difference between right and wrong. These ones became worse then insane, they became blood crazed, using the ring to take whatever they wanted for themselves...and kill any that tried to stop them."Alec finished quietly, almost even venomously, as horrible memories from his own past began to come back to him.  
As he finished, I could feel his hand trembling on my shoulder, his voice slightly tinged with a ping of anger and remorse.

I was now beginning to get a picture of just how much Alec and the band on my finger had gone through throughout the centuries.

I put my own hand on Alec's shoulder, squeezing it to let him know that I was still listening to every word.  
"Didn't anyone ever unite to fight these crazed ones?" I asked gently, making Alec look me in the eye again. He remained quiet for a moment as he considered what to say next.

"Ever heard of Ivar the Boneless?" (That was not what I was expecting)

My eyes widened as I recognised the name. Of course I'd heard about him. Ivar the Boneless had been one of the first Vikings to conquer most of the British Isles. His brutality was legendary, as was his military cunning and fighting prowess amongst his men.  
"He was a Bearer too?" I asked in astonishment, already making the connections in my head. Ivar was one of the most mysterious Viking warlords in history; his reputation was fearsome to be sure, but no historian had any real idea how he had been so successful in his campaigns. There were hundreds of theories and speculations to be sure, but no definative answers.

_'And not surprisingly, he was also a Berserker,'_ I thought as I tried to recount everything I knew about the Conqueror of York. Meanwhile Alec was nodding slowly as he began filling me in on the historical gaps.  
"The Bearer before Ivar was also a Viking, a feindish and blood thrusty warrior named Vakarr. When he was a young man, Ivar met Vakarr on the field of battle, in a bloody feud that lasted for three straight days," the Guardian explained.  
Off to our right, Yoda had crossed behind us to check on the still sleeping Jango. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he had his head turned slightly, showing that he was still keeping an open ear to listen to Alec's story.

"The battle ended with Ivar and Vakarr engaging in single combat, while the rest of their warriors stopped fighting each other to see who would win." I nodded. "Whoever won that battle would be made warlord of both groups?" I asked, already guessing the answer. Alec nodded also, already starting to brighten up a bit after having to reflect upon his older memories.

"It was at this moment that the ring abandoned Vakarr, stripping him of his powers so that Ivar would be able to slay him and take the ring for himself."

I blinked for a moment, doing a double take on that. Then the realization struck me.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Are you saying this thing could _abandon_ me at any moment!" I asked with a start. But Alec squeezed my shoulder firmly.  
"You have to understand Axel, Vakarr was one of the worst of all the Bearers. His deeds were so murderous that both the Christians and the Norse vowed never to mention him in their histories, hoping that he'd simply be forgotten."  
"But if the ring gives out on me in this universe, we'll all be stranded here!" I said urgently, looking between both him, Yoda, and casting a glance over at Jango. Alec placed his other hand on my other shoulder, gripping me with both hands.

"It won't come to that my friend, the ring left Vakarr because of his evil ways. In the first hour of wearing it, you've already proven yourself a better Bearer than he _ever_ was."

I paused at that, a slight frown on my face. Catching sight of this, Alec gave a friendly laugh at my confusion.  
"Even if you struck out Bailey, you had already made the choice to go in and save him, even after I had shot him down and _especially_ after he fired on us."  
I let out a short chuckle of my own, realizing the good deeds I had already done. I had already saved Sandra from the Stormtrooper, and I had saved both Bailey and his pilot from choking to death in the gunship's wreckage.

"Proven yourself noble you already have Axel, take strength from your actions..." said Yoda as he came up beside us, having finished checking on Jango. "...and from the companions who follow you."  
I gave a small smile to both Yoda and Alec, which they both retured in kind.  
"Thank you, both of you, if we stick together and work as a team, I won't need to worry about the _Rage_ taking over, or the ring abandoning me," I said gratefully.

"Then what say we get back on this quest," said Alec with a smile, clapping me on the shoulder.

I took a step back towards the exit, thinking of what our next step had to be.  
"Right now we need to look inconspicuous, and we're going to need better equipment if we want to get past C-Sec alive," I said, scratching my chin as I examined each store, trying to find one that might have the stuff we needed.  
Alec came up beside me.  
"If thats the case, we're also going to need to get rid of that..." he pointed to my sack still hanging around my shoulder.

"I know, thats why I've been hauling this stuff everywhere..." I said as I took a moment to tighten the strap.  
"I figured that if we found an antique collector somewhere, I could sell it to them for hard cash, or at least trade it for better items like an omni-tool."  
This time Alec scratched his chin, letting out a 'hum' of his own as he considered each store.

"The best one I can see for that would be..." Alec never got the chance to finish, for suddenly a loud klaxon alarm sounded throughout the Corridor. Merchants and citizens began speaking in heightened voices to be heard over the noise, all of them asking or demanding the reason for the alarm.

Just then a voice came on over the District speakers.  
_"Attention all citizens, there are two human fugatives at large within the Market District area, they are armed and extremely dangerous..."_ the voice continued. The glowing screens above each store in the corridor flashed white for a moment before being replaced with two different video reels.

"Oh no..." I groaned as I pounded the ball of my palm against my forehead. Displayed on each screen were video clips of both me and Alec taken from what looked like security camera footage. One of them showed me pistol whipping Forsenski back in the Presidium park, while the one of Alec showed him firing Jango's blaster at the hanging advertisment sign while being chased by C-Sec.  
"Oh, come on!" Alec said out loud in annoyance, his video footage lasting a bit longer to show the sign falling on top of the two Turian agents.

_"...If any citizen has seen these men, or has knowledge concerning their where-abouts, C-Sec is offering a financial reward of 50,000 credits for any information that may lead to their live capture and arrest."_

The voice finished its announcement before the alarms silenced. The corridor was now a buzz with talk, along with several people activating their omni-tools to place calls to C-Sec, hoping that any information they gave the police might get them some extra cash. Quickly I turned to the other two.  
"Alright, we're not gonna make it very far with the whole District on high alert, we have to get that equipment and get out of here before someone starts pointing fingers." Both Alec and Yoda nodded.  
"The store I was mentioning is just over there..." said Alec, pointing over to the otherside of the Corridor. Following his finger, I spotted the store he was indicating.

At the sight of it, I couldn't help but cock an eyebrow. This store was very different from all the other ones. The whole building was built flat into the wall, fashioned from a smooth gray metal. The only entrance was a large black blast door situated in the center of the wall. There were no windows visible, but there were two large glowing display cases built on either side of the door. Inside each showed ancient but exotic looking weapons, guns, and armour, all of which were probably relics from the Council races.  
My gaze travelled upwards past the door. A large round sign was built into the metal, looking like it was made out of gold. All around the sign were glowing white lights, illuminating the words:

_Irwin's _  
_Weapons and Antiques._

"Just the kind of shop we're looking for," Alec said from behind me, enthusiasm clearly evident in his voice. I was a bit skeptical however, it looked a bit too sturdy to simply be an antique store.  
"It looks like a bunker," I said over to him, gesturing at the store's bleak, gray exterior. Yoda came over in-between us to take a look for himself. Closing his eyes for a moment, the old Master suddenly got a light smile on his face.

"Nothing to fear you have Axel, sometimes in the most unlikeliest of places the greatest treasures can be found," the Jedi said, glancing up at me with a knowing look in his eye. I sighed for a moment, "_majority wins_," I said with a light chuckle before turning back to the store.

But suddenly we heard heavy bootfalls marching into the Corridor. Quickly, all of us moved away from the exit, flattening ourselves against the alley wall that Jango's limp form was still leaning against. Being the nearest to the exit, I easily moved myself a little closer to the Corridor to still hear what was going on.

"Ma'am, have you seen any of these individuals?" came a Turian voice. Keeping myself pressed against the wall, I leaned into the Corridor just enough for my eye to see around the corner.

Standing in front of one of the stores was a squad of six Turian C-Sec agents. Each of them was fully armed and armoured, combat helmets included. At the moment, one of the Turians was talking to an Asari merchant standing outside of the store. He had his omni-tool activated, with a small screen displaying images of both me and Alec, as well as blurry shots of Jango and Yoda taken after we had landed in the park. As the Asari looked at the screen she began shaking her head.  
"I'm sorry officer, I haven't seen any of these people around here," she said to him. The Turian deactivated his omni-tool and signalled for his men to continue on to the next store over.  
"Thank you for your co-operation ma'am," he said before leaving to rejoin his team.

I pulled myself away from the exit, creeping back towards the others.  
"They've already got a search team out for us, in a few minutes this whole area will be swarming with them," I said over to the other two, keeping my eyes on the Corridor, and my hand resting on top of Bailey's pistol. Behind me I could hear Alec chuckle a bit.  
"I just hope they've been ordered not to shoot us on sight after that little stunt in the park."

As the Turains began questioning the next store owner, I turned my gaze back to the antique store, mentally calculating the odds of us getting there un-noticed. After working out a quick solution, I turned back to my companions.

"One person is harder to find in a crowd, if I go across by myself I can use the pedestrians for cover," I said to Alec, pointing over my shoulder. The Guardian took a glance at the few people walking past the alley's entrance, all of them not bothering to look in our direction.  
"Are you sure you can make it? You're not exactly incognito yourself," he said, pointing to my torn T-Shirt and Luger belt which still held my four pistols.  
"I know, but its a better chance than having all four of us go across at once," I said, agreeing with his point also. It was a close gamble, but an acceptable one if it meant we would escape the Citadel later.

I took hold of the strap connected to the sack and slipped it off, holding it in one hand while I slipped off the belt holding the sheathed katana around my torso. After sliding the sword inside the sack with the uniform and armour, I put it back across my shoulder and took a moment to re-position it so that it hung off my chest, concealing my belt full of pistols and a large portion of my torn shirt.

"If I get caught..." I began, but Alec held up his hand.  
"We've got your back mate," he said, a reassuring smile on his face. I stopped, a small smile of my own crept onto my face. I extended my hand to him, for which he grasped with the hand he had been holding up. We both shook the other firmly, a sense of mutual respect clearly evident between us.

"May the Force be with you," Yoda said, slowly waving his hand to me, as if he were imparting some Jedi good luck. I hesitated for a moment before nodding to him.  
"And with you, both of you," I said, looking back between them.

Turning back to the exit, I took a moment to poke my head into the alley to see where the party of Turians had gone. Three of them had broken off to question random citizens walking by, while the other three were in front of another store, this time questioning a Volus merchant. I looked back over my shoulder at Yoda and Alec.

"Stay safe, and stay out of sight." With that I stepped out into the Corridor.

* * *

Back in the Presidium park, more agents had been brought to the scene to break up the crowd. At first the reinforcements were barely able to make any progress, but the crowd began to calm down as soon as C-Sec's riot control squads were sent in, along with all of the few Elcor agents they had under their command.  
The thought of trying to trample a wall of those mammoth creatures was more than enough to deter people from fighting any further. Once the citizens had been coralled into different sections of the park grounds, medical teams could be safely brought in to help anyone that had been injured during the chaos.  
Most of the people the medics began tending to were the Turian agents that had taken the brunt of the crowd's panic, which mostly consisted of some harsh cases of bruising, while unfortunately a few others had taken some more serious damages like broken bones and lacerations.

Up above the mob of police and civilians, a C-Sec patrol car dropped out of the Fast Transit lanes crisscrossing over the Presidium. The car circled around the park for a moment before decending down near one of the exits, which was currently blocked off by two of the Elcor agents. As the car touched down onto the tiled pathway, its doors and roof opened outwards to let its passenger disembark. Out stepped a tall, beige coloured, green eyed Turian officer dressed in black and blue armour, with white tribal markings across his face.

As this officer began making his way towards the makeshift medical bay set up in the center of the park, he passed by many of the Turian agents, most of them sitting up on stretchers set low to the ground. From first glance, the officer could tell most of them had been in the thickest of the riot. Salarian and Asari medics kneeled next to each, applying medi-gel to relieve bruises and gashes they had recieved from the terrified civilians. As the officer continued on his way, he saw a few other Turians laying down on their stretchers with bandages or slings wrapped around their arms or hands, obviously meant for holding together broken bones.  
_'Bailey's gonna have hell to pay for this,'_ the officer thought to himself as he continued towards the medical centre. But as he came nearer to it, the officer noticed one person that didn't quite fit with the rest. It was a human, lying down on one of the stretchers in a black jumpsuit. Around his right leg was a metal brace, showing he had also sustained a broken bone.

"You there..." the officer called as he stopped, getting the patient's attention. The human immediately jerked his head up, looking over in the direction of the officer.  
"Yes sir, forgive me if I don't stand sir," said the human, giving a slanted salute as he propped himself up on his elbows. As the officer came up beside the human's stretcher, he noticed a black flight helmet set on the ground next to him.

"I take it you're a pilot?" asked the officer. The human let out a bitter chuckle as he lay back down on his stretcher.  
"I was a pilot," he said, a mixture of anger and sarcasm evident in his voice. This caused the Turian to cock a brow ridge.  
"If you were flying during the riot, how'd you get yourself injured?" the officer asked. The pilot looked up at him, jabbing his thumb over to the side of the pathway.  
"Turns out those criminals we were sent after are packing more than we thought."

The Turian frowned in confusion as he looked up in the direction the pilot was pointing, over to the ponds going along the pathway.

Immediately his head reared back in surprise. The steaming hulk of Bailey's Mantis gunship gleamed in the white sunlight, as it sat comfortably in the clear water it had landed in.  
As the officer looked over the wreckage, he noticed the ship's left wing was nothing more than a jagged wreck, along with a large hole torn into the side of the canopy leading into the cockpit.  
_'By the spirits! What the hell has Bailey been doing!'_ the Turian thought as he stormed up the last few feet to the med-centre.

The centre was a small box shaped encloser, made up of four plastic field walls that could be set up or taken down at any time. The Turian officer stopped at one of these and tapped the glowing red console set up just beside him. It flicked green for a moment, retracting a built in door to allow him entrance. Up in front of him was an Asari doctor, who at the moment was tapping away on her omni-tool, while talking to the very person the Turian wanted to see.

"...Luckily lieutenant, with regular medi-gel applications you should be able to get that off in a few days," the doctor was saying.

A large examining bed was set up in the middle of the centre, surrounded by crates and other medical equipment. At the moment, Lieutenant Bailey was sitting up on the side of the bed with his legs hanging over the edge. A black sling was wrapped across his chest, being used to hold his left arm in place. Around his actual arm however, was a silver mechanical cast of some type, with small blue lights flicking on and off every few seconds. There was also a large purple bruise along his left temple, along with a couple of scratches on his cheek and a small gash above his left eyebrow.

"Thats fine doc, when can I get back to work?" Bailey asked. The doctor gave him an incredulous look before returning her gaze to her omni-tool.

"Mr. Bailey, you sustained two fractures to your radius, it will take time for that arm to..." then the doctor suddenly noticed the Turian officer standing in the doorway.  
"Oh, Lieutenant Chellick...I wasn't aware you had arrived," the doctor said, somewhat awkwardly as she looked back and forth between the Turian and Bailey. Bailey let out a tired sigh as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his good hand.  
"I need a word with the patient doctor...in private," Chellick said cooly, never taking his piercing green eyes off Bailey. The doctor hesitated as she de-activated her omni-tool, un-sure if she liked were this situation was going. Bailey finally gave her a light nudge on her arm.  
"Go on, there's more broken bones that need tending to," said the furture Captain. The Asari nodded slowly before walking past Chellick, tapping the glowing console on her way out.

As the door shut behind her, Chellick folded his arms and leaned back against one of the crates placed throughout the encloser, his ridged Turian features masking the look of anger and exceptancy he was feeling at the moment. Bailey let out an annoyed sigh before sliding off the bed, holding his cast in place to keep it from moving too much.  
"You got something to say to me Chellick?" asked Bailey, sounding more like a statement rather than a question.  
"More like I got a few things to _ask_ you, Bailey. One of which is, _what the hell happened here?_" Chellick snapped, unfolding his arms as he pointed in the direction of the Mantis wreckage. Bailey grabbed a large water bottle from one of the crates.

"We ran into a problem..." Bailey said quietly, only half looking in Chellick's direction as he undid the cap, taking a long swig from the bottle as the Turian continued. Chellick stormed up closer to Bailey so they would be seeing eye to eye, fully intent on getting his point across.

"The Presidium is under _my_ control, which means that any problem you run into becomes _my_ problem!" Despite the situation, Bailey only looked at his bottle for a moment before taking another drink. Immediately Chellick snatched the bottle out of the other lieutenant's grip.  
"Come on Bailey, give me _something_. Twenty minutes ago you called me up requesting two Mantis gunships, and then right after that you placed a district wide call for nearly three dozen agents to meet you at this location. Explain to me how two lightly armed fugitives could blow all that preparation to hell."

Bailey turned to Chellick with a half hearted glare.  
"You had them cornered and cut off, but then some how a riot breaks out that my men can't control, and then you get shot out of the sky! I need something to help me bridge the leaps of logic between those three events." Chellick finished as he set the bottle to the side, his green eyes staring hard at Bailey as he waited for the other officer's answer. Bailey straightened up as he thought about how best to reveal all that had happened.

"We thought we had them Chellick, but I underestimated what this Axel is capable of, he surprised us with tricks we never would have seen coming," said Bailey stoicly, using his good hand to gently raise his injured arm up a few inches. Chellick frowned at this as he came around to look at what Bailey was trying to show him.  
"What do you mean he surprised you?" asked the Turian as Bailey activated his omni-tool, the glowing yellow hologram enveloping the outer shell of his silver cast. Bailey keyed in a few codes, bringing up a large yellow screen that showed a frozen image of Axel and his three companions from an Eagle Eye Perspective, standing before a massive group of civilians.

After hitting the play button, Bailey inclined a bit to give Chellick a better view of the scene unfolding.  
"This was taken from my ship's surveillance camera during the incident," said Bailey as the Turian leaned closer. At the moment the three criminals were facing towards the advancing C-Sec agents, the one known as Axel held a stolen C-Sec Kessler pistol in his hands, while his two companions flanked him on both sides. The one on his left must have been a twin brother, judging from the striking similarity between the two of them. However, it was the one to Axel's right that caught Chellick's eye.

As the Turians continued advancing towards the trio, the little green creature seemed to be saying something to Axel and his doppleganger as it drew a small metal cylinder from beneath it's tattered white robes.

Suddenly, after pressing a small button on the device, a brilliant flash of white-green light erupted from one of its ends, causing the pixels in the camera screen to flare for a moment. After it had cleared, Chellick was astounded to see the little creature weilding a shimmering green blade in front of him.  
"What is that?" asked Chellick, turning his gaze briefly over to Bailey.  
"It gets better," said Bailey somewhat sourly as he pointed back to the screen. Just as the Turians were about to break through the crowd, Axel's double suddenly exclaimed something so loud even the roar of the Mantis repulsers couldn't drown out.

_"WAIT A MINUTE!"_ shouted the double, his face glowing with what looked like a revelation. Breaking away from the other two, the double quickly crossed over towards the crowd, making his presence known to everyone as he stopped and rasied his hands above his head. There was a tense minute of silence before he let out a booming announcement.

_"That's right people,_ WE ARE INTERGALACTIC TERRORISTS!"

Chellick cocked a brow ridge in both confusion and amusement.  
"You gotta be kidding me," said the Turian, now starting to think this was some hoax the Human officer had created to excuse his failures.  
"Keep watching," said Bailey grimly, as if expecting something big to happen next.

As both Axel and the creature next to him looked over at the former's double, the crowd seemed to be in either shock or confusion, mearly looking at each other as the double remained frozen with his arms raised. After turning his head and saying something over to Axel, the army of Turians finally broke through the wall of citizens. Their commander marched ahead of them, barking an order to the fugitives as he drew his assault rifle from behind his back.

_'So how did this all go wrong?'_ thought Chellick as Axel remained frozen in place.

Not a second later he got his answer. Before any of the agents had fully raised their weapons, Axel snapped his Kessler into the air and fired off a single shot over the crowd's heads.

Suddenly, a combined scream from nearly every civilian in the park blarred through the speakers on Bailey's omni-tool, causing Chellick to rear backwards to keep from going deaf. The crowd began scattering in different directions, a large portion of them breaking off for the Market stores, while the rest charged straight into the unprepared Turians!

With complete disbelief, Chellick couldn't tear his eyes from the screen as the stampede of civilians began utterly crushing three dozen of his best trained agents.  
_"Party Time!"_ Axel's double sang out over the mayhem going on around them. No sooner after he had said that, a great monsterous roar blasted out across the park, coming straight out of the double's mouth! Chellick frowned while shaking his head at what he was seeing.  
"What just..." began Chellick as he shot his eyes over at Bailey.  
"Keep watching," Bailey repeated, keeping his own eyes on his screen.

The view from the camera shifted as Bailey's Mantis repositioned, the sudden orange glow from it's main cannon was starting to block out everything in visual range. But past it, Chellick could make out the Echo 2 gunship that he had sent along with Bailey taking a firing position just over top of Axel and his little green companion.

_"YODA!"_ came Axel's voice, shouting over his shoulder to the creature. Chellick barely had time to register what was happening as Echo 2 opened fire upon the blonde human. Suddenly out of nowhere, the creature known as Yoda was in-between Axel and the thermal line of fire!

Blinking hard and inching his face even closer to the screen, Chellick was in a bewilderment as Yoda began slicing his bright green sword back and forth, diving and dodging in graceful acrobatic movements.  
What really made the Turian do a double take was that each and every blast fired at this strange alien was being deflected back at the ship! As Yoda battled with the other Mantis, Axel spun to the side and looked straight up into the camera that had recorded him. Immediatley Bailey's Mantis let our a burst of thermal fire, seemingly intent on slicing Axel to pieces. But amazingly the human was able to dive and roll out of Bailey's line of fire, which impacted into his former position, smashing hundreds of dent marks into the tiled pathway instead.

_'Dent marks?'_ the Turian thought, a bit puzzled at the cannon's effects.

"Here it is..." said Bailey quietly, almost with a bitter sound in his voice. Chellick snapped out of his thoughts and gazed intently, waiting to see what had caused the crash of the Mantis.

_"Alright, switch the rounds to a higher setting, make this guy...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"_ shouted Bailey's recorded voice through the omni-tool speakers. Chellick narrowed his eyes, scanning the screen from left to right in search of what Bailey's recording was shouting about.

And then he saw it.

Farther off to where he had been standing before the riot, Axel's double was enveloped in a shining white aura, his features fading away until he was merely a human outline of pure white energy. Immediately his form grew twenty times its original size, with his limps and torso elongating and becoming more muscular.

"_What_..._the hell_..._is that_?" mimicked Chellick with more emphasis as he gazed at this new creature. Bailey's Mantis had turned away from Axel to face what ever his twin had transformed into. In the camera's field of vision was an enormous beast of some kind, charging closer to the gunship with each bound of its nuckles, cracking the tiled pathway and smashing away any tree in its path. Covered in a thick coat of black hair, with huge arms and a mighty torso, Chellick recognized it as an animal from Earth, one that the Human's called a gorilla. Except this one was easily four times larger than any gorilla Chellick had ever seen.  
_'I've never seen one with glowing silver eyes either,'_ thought the Turian after noticing the animal's face as the action continued to unfold.

Axel had rolled up onto one knee, his hand still grasping his stolen Kessler. Just up behind him the giant gorilla came to a skidding stop, spraying out tile shards in his wake. Just beside the two of them was a large peice of torn metal that looked like it had been a part of a large elevator cabin. The beast quickly took hold of the debris with his mighty hands and hauled it up in front of him.

_"Switch incindiaries now!"_ shouted Bailey as the Mantis cannon began firing at full power, trying to bring the monster down. But to Chellick's horror, the blasts barely did anything! The ape roared in anger as his wounds glowed silver and healed instantly, all while the hunk of debris shielding his upper body from the barrage of fire.  
_"ALEC!"_ shouted Axel's voice, barely audible over the cannon fire. Then suddenly the ape began laughing, an insane and maniacal laugh.  
_"IS THAT ALL YOU GOT!"_ shouted the creature known as Alec as the thermal rounds continued tearing into him.

As if in answer to this Alec's question, Bailey's cannon finally stopped in mid-fire. Glancing over at it, Chellick wasn't surprised to see it red hot and smoking along its barrel. But the action wasn't over yet, Alec was now holding the smoking, hole filled debris out before him. As Axel stood up, Alec suddenly began rotating in a circular motion, going faster and faster with each swing as the debris gave him more momentum.  
"_Alec_...NO!" shouted Axel as he ducked low to the ground to avoid getting hit by the ape's swing. With a mighty roar, Alec let go of his burden, flinging the chunk of elevator up at Bailey's ship, causing it to spin rapidly like a saucer as it flew.  
_"Shit, break right, BREAK RIGHT!"_ shouted Bailey's voice as the Mantis began veering off.

But just as Chellick had been expecting, the spinning peice of elevator came smashing into the camera at full speed. There was a loud crash before the omni-tool screen suddenly became nothing but lines of black and gray static with white noise emitting from its speakers. Bailey let out a sigh as he deactivated the device, causing the hologram to fade away. After retrieving the bottle of water Chellick had snatched from him, Bailey spoke.

"So...now you know."

Chellick was shaking his head to himself in bewilderment.  
"They have un-known technology, and at least one un-known _life-form_..." the Turian turned to the other officer.  
"What the hell did you stumble on Bailey?" asked Chellick, really just to voice his question then expect an answer. Bailey took a swig from his water before setting it back down.  
"From the stunt that this Alec was able to pulll, we have two possibilities. One, he and Axel are actually terrorists who've gotten their hands on some kind of advanced holographic technology, or..." began the Human lieutenant as he leaned against the examining bed.

"...Alec is some kind of shape shifting alien that both the Alliance and the Council have never met before...I'm hoping for the former."

Chellick nodded as he began thinking through different courses of action.  
"What about this Yoda creature? I want to know what that laser sword wa..." suddenly Chellick was cut off by the sound of someone shouting outside the med-centre's plastic field walls.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Bailey!" shouted a young man. The door in the wall facing Chellick and Bailey slid to the side and a bold faced human officer ran in towards them.  
"Sirs, we've found him!" exclaimed the officer, brandishing a glowing OSD pad in his right hand. Immediatley Bailey stormed over and took the pad from him, giving it a quick once over.

"Axel's been spotted in the Second Store Corridor, the one running parallel to the area most of the crowd ran into during the riot," said Bailey over to Chellick as he tossed him the pad.  
"That's not far from here," said Chellick as he caught it.

As the Turian looked over the information, Bailey turned to the younger officer.  
"I'm also gonna need your weapon son," ordered Bailey.  
"No!" barked Chellick as his head shot up from the pad. The younger man hesitated before slowly handing his pistol into Bailey's extended palm.  
"If we're going after them, we're doing it _my_ way this time!" said Chellick sternly, jabbing a thumb at himself. Bailey rammed the officer's standard Kessler into the hostler once used for his modified pistol.  
"Which means no firing into crowds, _understand_," ordered the Turian, putting a subtle emphasis on the last word.

The Human turned to Chellick with an insulted look to his stoic features.  
"My ships were firing _concussion_ rounds only..." Bailey began with a sharp bite behind his words.  
"There's no way in hell that I would use lethal ammunition while civilians were in the area, my goal was to take Axel and his accomplices alive!" said the lieutenant as he started for the open doorway.

"And yet you started firing _Incindiary_ rounds at this Alec character the moment you saw him," stated Chellick incredulously, folding his arms in the process. Immediately Bailey ripped off the black sling holding his arm in place, ignoring the dull pain his casted broken arm was feeling.  
"When you run into a 15 foot tall gorilla hell bent on smashing you to pieces...let me know which ammunition you chose to throw at it," said Bailey coldly, as both he and the young officer turned and marched out of the med-centre. Chellick sighed in defeat as he activated his own omni-tool and keyed in a squence of commands.

"_Touche_ Bailey..." he said under his breath as he followed them.

"When was it called in?" Bailey asked the younger officer as the three of them walked down the tiled pathway through the lines of injured Turians.  
"About five minutes ago, an agent in one of our search teams called in saying he had spotted Axel trying to blend in with a group of pedestrians..." began the officer as Chellick handed him back the OSD.  
"He said Axel was nearing a store named...," began the officer as he read the pad over once more. But he was unable to finish his sentence, for as he spoke the ground began to shake slightly, followed by a deep and heavy rumbling.

Suddenly a huge gust of wind swirled around the majority of the park, causing everyone, civilian and C-Sec alike to look skyward. Descending through the Fast Transit lanes on quad coupled repulsers, was the gargantuan form of one of C-Sec's newest _Ray class_ gunships.  
Looking like a giant Manta Ray, with a massive forward cockpit, enormous curved wings on either side, and bustling with high calibre cannons and gun emplacements, the sight of it was more than enough to make most of the people within the park take a few steps back.

Bailey was one of the few who stood his ground, although with an eyebrow cocked in disbelief.

"_This_ is your way of handling things?" Bailey shouted over to Chellick to be heard over the roaring blast of the repulsers, pointing up at the frightening jet black ship. Chellick walked ahead of Bailey as the ship slowly rotated in a full circle, its back end opening up and extending a large loading ramp to allow the officers to board.  
"Officer! Keep things under control here, me and Lieutenant Bailey are going up!" shouted Chellick over the noise to the younger man.  
"Yes sir!" nodded the man with a salute before running off to address a group of Salarian medics.

Bailey and Chellick climbed up the ramp until they both reached the open hatch-way. But before they entered, Chellick stopped his Human co-worker with a tug on the arm.  
"Alright listen, I've got two hours before I need to report to Pallin! If we don't have Axel, or a believable excuse by then, its gonna be both our careers out the airlock!" shouted Chellick as they both stared at each other.  
_"Understand!"_  
"I got you the first time Chellick!" said Bailey, annoyance clearly evident in his tone, which was able to cut clear through the roar of the ship without him having to shout.  
"Good," said the Turian as he placed a hand on the left side of his head, activating his radio ear-piece.

"We're on-board, take us up..." said the lieutenant as he and Bailey entered into the ship's armoury. The ramp behind them quickly slid together and folded back upwards, sealing the rear end of the ship as the two made their way to the cockpit. The blast from the repuslers (since the ship was still hovering) increased and propelled the vessel away from the Presidium and into the sky, kicking up a large dust trail in its wake from the park grounds.

"...we're going hunting," finished Chellick as he closed the link.

* * *

I moved quickly and confidently, walking around people as casually as I could, making sure not to stay in one place long enough for someone to get a good look at my face. I didn't make eye contact with any of the people that happened to look my way, instead focusing on the glowing golden sign just ahead of me.

_Irwin's _  
_Weapons and Antiques_

_'If I can just get through those doors I should be home free for a while,'_ I thought to myself as I finally crossed the width of the Store Corridor, coming up beside a purple coloured bench attached to the far wall, right next to one of the the glowing white display cases that stood in front of Irwin's store. The temptation to sit and rest for a minute tugged at me, but I couldn't stop for barely a second, lest someone from the crowd decide to look my way and recognise me from the video clips still replaying on each of the stores' screens.

I was less than ten feet from the store's giant black blast door, it would take barely four seconds for me to cover that distance and get out of sight.

Letting out a deep breath, I took a step forward, completely unprepared for what would come next.

Suddenly the ring lit up its usual bright silver, causing a few people to glance in my direction.  
_'Damn. It!'_ I shouted in my head as I clamped my left hand over top of it, snuffing out the light from view. But it was too late.

"You there!" barked a Turian voice from behind me.  
"Figures..." I said under my breath as I pulled my hands away, the light from the ring having conveniently disappeared. I looked around, and wasn't surprised by the shocked looks I was getting as dozens of pedestrians stopped in their tracks to view what was happening. The hard clunking of boots hitting polished metal came up behind me.

"Show me your hands, and turn around slowly," ordered the voice in a cold tone. I raised my hands to my sides, and slowly turned around while remaining in place. Just as I had been expecting, a large blue armoured and helmeted Turian agent stood before me, pointing an activated Kessler that was ready to sink a round right between my eyes.

"Put your hands on your head and drop to your kne...," but he never got to finish. As he was talking, a small but sharp whistle sound rang out as something stabbed into the side of the Turian's exposed neck line, in between his armour and helmet.

The agent tensed up with a small gasp of pain as his pistol fell from his grasp, clattering to the floor in front of him. Many of the on-lookers made their own gasps at this sudden change.  
The agent's body appeared to go partially limp, right before falling forward ontop of me!

_"What?"_ I blurted out as I barely managed to brace myself, half catching and half stopping the agent in mid fall with my arms wrapped around his torso. I bared my teeth as I strained against my new burden, the agent's helmet had crashed into my shoulder, causing a stinging pain as the rim cut through my T-shirt. His breathing had become ragged as his head lay next to my ear, his body becoming a full dead weight bearing down on me. I grunted in effort as I managed to haul the Turian, coupled with the heavy armour he was wearing, over to the bench I was standing beside. Leaning him back into the bench, I quickly looked over at what had hit him just seconds ago.

Embedded in the softer part of the Turian's dark grey body plates, was a dark bronze dart of some kind. It was no longer than a toothpick, but branched outward in different directions around the end, with odd markings carved along its smooth edges. Reaching over, I drew out the dart as gently as I could from the agent's neck. Holding it between my thumb and index finger, I looked at it briefly in the Corridor's multi-coloured lighting.

"A tranquilizer?" I asked to myself in confusion as I turned around to look up into the ceiling. Running along the length of the Corridor just underneath the ceiling was a large dark catwalk, similar to the ones Commander Shepard would use in Mass Effect 2 to help Thane Krios two years from now. Ignoring the whispering going on in front of me from the new crowd of citizens, my eyes scanned the walkway quickly for any sign of who had taken the shot.  
Listening as best I could over the Corridor's usual noises, I thought I could hear a very faint clicking sound echoing off the catwalk's grated flooring, but other than that there was nothing visual to tell me someone was up there.

Behind me, the agent began using his right hand to try and reach for his left forearm. Putting the dart in one of my pant's pockets, I turned back to the agent and bent down on one knee in front of him, looking for what he was trying to reach for.

"My omni-tool..." he managed to wheeze out. Quickly I grabbed his left arm by the wrist to bring it closer to him, un-intentionally causing the orange hologram to envelope the Turian's arm and a part of my hand. (It's pretty interesting when it looks like half your hand is getting cut off by an orange keyboard, and yet know that it isn't at the same time)  
"That button there..." he said, motioning to a large pulsing button near my hand as he put every ounce of strength into his words, the un-known tranquilizer continuing to work through his system. Immediatley I pressed it as the agent fell back in the bench, close to losing conciousness.

Suddenly a loud blarring alarm screamed from the Turian's omni-tool, causing me to jump up in surprise. I could hear the agent's strained voice cackling quietly behind his helmet as he uttered his last words before succumbing to the dart's serum.

_"Gottcha..."_

Farther down the Corridor I could hear more screeching alarms, as the other Turians I had seen earlier began shouting, all of them charging through the pedestrians towards my location.

"Bastard," I said as I quickly pushed the sack of armour behind me, showing off my full belt of pistols and torn shirt to the panicking crowd of people. Most of them screamed as they recognized who I was, some calling down to the agents to hurry up as they pointed in my direction. In a snap decision I bent down and snatched up the sleeping Turian's Kessler.

Just like back in the park, I raised the pistol to the ceiling and fired. Almost everyone began running in oppisite directions, filling the corridor with screams and the frenzied crashing of limbs as I fired a few more shots into the ceiling for good measure. As the scene of chaos began unfolding with a sort of da-ja-vu feeling, everyone was now scrambling and not bothering to glance in my direction, while thankfully obscuring the vision of anyone else still looking for me.

Immediatley I turned and dashed the last ten feet to Irwin's blast door before the agents could break through, throwing away the Turian's Kessler in the process. The door activated as soon as I came in front of it, splitting down the center as the two halves quickly parted away from each-other. Before they were fully clear of the other, I bolted inside the store with the doors automatically shutting right behind me, before any civilians or agents could see where I had disappeared to.

* * *

"What the hell just happened?" demanded Chellick, leaning his whole body over the table that supported his control console. On the screen in front of him was the visual feed from one of the combat helmets being worn by the Turian agents, showing a first person view as they continued fighting through the rushing crowd to get to the source of the screeching alarm. Bailey quickly came up behind Chellick and held down a button on the keyboard.  
"Seach team report!" ordered the Human officer.

_"We've got an agent down! And several shots from a standard issue Kessler were just fired just a few seconds ago!"_ shouted the voice of the Turian squad leader who's helmet the lieutenants were viewing through.  
"Any sign of Axel or the other two?" asked Chellick into the speaker.

The image on the screen was rocked hard a few times, accompanied by several harsh words from the Turian as he and his squad shoved through the wall of citizens to where Axel had last been seen. Instead of finding him, they saw their sixth squad member lazily leaning back on a Corridor bench, his omni-tool still screeching its alarm, while the Turian's chest rose gently up and down as if he were in a peaceful sleep. The squad leader let out a disappointed breath as he signalled his men to stand down, activating his own omni-tool and shutting off the annoying squake of the alarms.

_"Negative sir, we've lost him."_

Chellick hung his head as he leaned with his hands spread on the table. Bailey patted him on the shoulder with his casted hand as he keyed a few commands into the console. As Chellick looked up, the screen changed from the squad leader's helmet view to a holographic rendering of the Presidium's Market District.

"There's a large platform running along the back of the Corridor stores reserved for the private parking of hover cars, if Axel went into any these places here..." Bailey highlighted five different locations close to where the unconscious Turian agent had been found.  
"He'd be able to leave through their rear exits, hotwire anyone of those vehicles, and make his escape into the Fast Transit Lanes." Chellick nodded as he viewed each route to the parking lot.  
"Then if we cut across here, to the edge of the Presidium Ring itself, we'll be able to intercept him as soon as he tried lifting off," began the Turian, as he highlighted a small section of the Ring's circumference, right beside the platform Bailey had indicated.

Turning over to the spacious cockpit that held five jumpsuited pilots working away at the controls, Bailey addressed the one sitting ahead of the other four closest to the blacked out windshield.  
"Thompson! You got that?" ordered Bailey from their console.  
"Yes sir!" called the senior Human pilot over his shoulder as he manipulated the controls.

The massive gunship banked gently over to the right, it's four large repulsors blasting it on its path, allowing it to skirt easily past maintainance spires and skyscrapers that dotted the outer hull of the Citadel. After a few minutes the ship finally slowed to a dead crawl forward, as it neared the large negative space between the inner edge of the Presidium Ring and the base of the Citadel Tower.

Now all they had to do was wait, wait and watch for their prey to try and make his great escape from the station.

* * *

"He got in! I can't believe he got in!" exclaimed Alec in disbelief from his kneeling position, looking deeper through the small pair of binoculars the Guardian had found strapped around a still unconcious Jango's neck. The bounty hunter's limp body was being twisted in more awkward positions as Alec and Yoda kept fighting each other over them, yanking the binoculars back and forth to get a better look at the action in the Corridor.

Finally, after handing them over to give Yoda a proper look, something occured to Alec, causing him to rub his chin in thought.  
"Although...I don't get how he was able to take down that agent..." began the Guardian, looking over at the Master while he continued watching the screaming mass of citizens run by.  
"Axel didn't even touch that Turian, and yet he fell almost dead right right in front of everyone."

Suddenly Yoda felt a pain in his forehead...a tremor in the Force. Something dark and evil was nearby, a lifeform more savage than any the Master had encountered in his long life. Letting go of the binoculars, which allowed Jango to fall back against the wall, Yoda laid a hand on his lightsaber hilt, his keen eyes scanning the Corridor and the long catwalk near the ceiling. After finding nothing, he began stretching out with his senses, trying to detect the dark entity. But the fear and confusion being broadcasted from the minds of the panicking citizens was enough to cloud his vision, blocking the location of the being from his thoughts.

"What is it?" asked Alec, noticing the troubled concentration wrinkling the old Master's face. Yoda opened his eyes, scanning the area again, desperate to find the creature that he could feel coming closer with each second. Turning to Alec, Yoda spoke in a grave voice, his hand never leaving his saber hilt.  
"I do not believe that it was Axel who brought down that agent."

Just when Alec was about to say somthing, a short, muffled banging noise sounded out nearby, coming from behind one of the large trash compactors scattered thoughout the alleyway. Yoda unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, ready to ignite it.

"Hold on, just stay with him for a bit," said Alec, holding up a hand as he inclined his head over to Jango. Yoda nodded cautiously, never taking his eyes off the trash compactor. He could feel the creature's dark presence somewhere inside the alley, bouncing off the walls as if it were one with the dark shadows being cast by the alley's deep orange lights.

Alec crept forward on his jackboots, remaining in a crouch as he came closer to the source of the noise. Quietly stretching out his right hand, he slowly extended the jet black talons in his fingers, ready for whatever was hiding behind the machine.

* * *

I let out a deep breath as soon as I heard the hiss of the doors sealing behind me.  
_'That was too close.'_

Right away my eyes started scanning the inside of the store, or rather the tunnel to the store as it were. Stretching out before me, the long tunnel/hallway (either or) was about thirty feet long, made of dark grey metal.  
Deep yellow lights shone over head down the length of the hall, sending down a gentle, almost soothing glow onto the richly carpeted floor. As I slowly began walking down the hall, I gazed at both walls in amazement. Placed within glass cases tucked inside several alcoves carved into the walls, were artifacts of incredible detail. Swords, spears, armour, guns and other devices I didn't recognize hung prestinely within their containers, each case showing artifacts from a different alien race.  
_'This looks more like a museum,'_ I thought as I continued down the hall, maveling at the incredible pieces, the usual loud clicks of my SS jackboots were pleasingly muffled by the soft carpet I walked on.

As I continued, I suddenly began noticing artifacts from Earth. The shining suit of armour that would have belonged to a Medieval knight was the first to catch my eye, propped up in a standing position next to a large broad-sword and a round wooden shield bearing a strange crest in its center. I walked over to the case, smiling in awe as I took in every detail of the artifacts. On a small console jutting out just beneath the base of the glass case was a blue lettered hologram.

_'The Knight Errant'_ were the words that hovered on its screen.

I smiled again as I looked back up at the towering suit of armour, feeling like I should've saluted it out of respect. But before I could do anything, I noticed a reflection in the glass, a very familiar reflection. Spinning around, I was shocked at what was housed in the case opposite to the Knight's.

"Irwin has Samara's armour?" I stated my thoughts out loud, taken aback by the uncanny resemblance between the armour I was seeing and that which Shepard would see the Justicar wear two years from now.

But as I walked over to this case, I began noticing differences right away. The red paint on the armour's plates was cracked and faded, and also held many scratch and burn marks along the chest, legs, and arms. As I examined further, I noticed the iconic head markings Samara wore along her eyebrows during Mass Effect 2. Except the ones hanging up in the case were dented and twisted in some places, looking like they had been in a major fight. Also, hanging up all around the armour were swords, spikes, and what looked like curved throwing knives. No guns or any indication of modern technology.

"This was an ancient Justicar..." I whispered to myself as I looked down at the holo screen at the foot of the case, identical to the one behind me. Except on this one it read, _'The Justicar, 1919 BCE.'_

"I'll be damned..." I said with an astonished chuckle, looking up at the Asari artifacts again, "...the Justicars didn't need to change much over the centuries." Suddenly a memory flashed across my mind, something that Samara had said to Shepard during one of the quieter moments in ME 2.

_'The closest Human equivalent I can think of would be a knight errant, mixed with a bit of samurai...'_

Samara's words echoed in my ears as I opened the top of my rugged sack, reaching in and pulling out the samurai katana. I gave a broad smile of disbelief, looking from the katana, to the Justicar armour, and then back to the Knight Errant case.  
"If this is Fate, I hope its on my side..." I said with another laugh.

But as I began walking down the hall again, I noticed the soft notes of a violin playing in the background. As I listened, I also began to recognize the tune they were playing to.  
"Vivaldi?" I said as I squinted my eyes, trying to see what was at the end of the hall. Up ahead I caught a glimpse of a larger, and even more inviting room, filled with several more display cases of other artifacts, but also showing modern things that looked brand new as if they were for sale.  
After quickening my pace I followed the sound of the music, walking past several cases filled with Turian, Salarian, and an asortment of other race's artifacts before entering into the massive room.

"Whoa..." I managed to say, coming to a stop as my voice caught in my throat.

The room was much larger than I'd thought, and circular as well, with a very high ceiling. All around the room, soft yellow lights shone down from the ceiling and from the walls next to their display cases, illuminating everything in a very theatrical way. Around the walls were a few display cases showing ancient weapons that I hadn't noticed, but the majority of the newest looking items were held in what appeared to be display counters that you might see at a regular gun shop.

But it was what was on the ceiling that really caught me. Circling around the center of the roof were dozens of stone relief carvings, of both humans and animals all rendered in stunning detail. As I continued to squint up towards the ceiling, I was able to make out the figures of Zeus, Poseidon, Pegasus and other icon's from Greek mythology.  
And it wasn't just Greek figures I saw up there, I could also see the branches of the Great Yggdrasil (also known as _the World Tree_ in Norse mythology) wrapping around the edges of the roof's circular center. The carved figures of Odin, Thor, The Great Wolf Fenrir, and other Norse gods were displayed in perfect detail along-side their Greek counterparts.

Suddenly, before I could examine any further, I heard a gruff male voice clearing his throat, in a rather annoyed manner.

Snapping out of my gaze, I looked ahead to find the source of the noise. Or rather, I looked down onto a large circular space covered by a flat red carpet, lowered by three ring levels that acted as steps, one of which was lowered just in front of me. In the center of this space were three curved display counters, each positioned with their curve facing outward, and the ends of the counters being spaced far enough away to allow a person to enter or leave from behind them by three different ways. The effect of this positioning succeeded in creating a broken ring, from which a person could stand inside of.

As I looked down onto this level of the store, I quickly found the source of both the music and the person who was annoyed with my lollygagging in his store. Before me stood an average sized Turian, with gray coloured skin and dark eyes, dressed in a simple Mass Effect syle business suit. At the moment he was standing behind one of the curved counters, using a cleaning rag to polish down an already gleaming M-6 Carniflex Hand Cannon.

_'So much for Kesslers,'_ I thought as I straightened up, stifling my anxiety, and stepped down towards him. He kept his dark eyes fixed on me, all while his hands continued to polish down the pistol with practiced ease.

"Something I can do for you?" he asked. His tone was casual, but also firm. As I stepped down to his level I reached across my chest with my free hand, since my other still held the katana, and lifted the strap connected to the sack up off my shoulders.  
"Yes, I have some items I would like to sell you, Mr. Irwin..." I began as I crossed over to the counter, laying down the sack with a clunk in front of him. However the Turian cracked his equivalent of a smirk as he gave a short chuckle.  
"I'm not Irwin...and I pray to the spirits that I'll never become him," the Turian said with a trace of humor to his voice. That caused me to frown, my grip on the katana tightening instinctively as I eyed the Carniflex he held in his hands. Suddenly he placed it flat on the counter's reflective black surface and extended his taloned right hand towards me.

"Name's Bruce," he said, that same firmness in his tone, but non-threatening at the same time. I hesitated for a moment, eyeing his talons carefully before taking hold of his hand with my own.

"Bruce? That doesn't sound like a Turian name," I said as we shook hands. Bruce shrugged.  
"I didn't choose it but it suits me fine, most people have a hard time pronouncing my real name." Bruce picked up his Carniflex and began polishing again. The soft notes of Vivaldi continued playing through a speaker built into the counter just beside his elbow. The sound of the violin died down as the song ended, picking up again in a different manner as the next song in the Turian's play-list began.  
"So, uh...Bruce, would you be able to show me the way to Mr. Irwin?" I asked, still not sure if I was comfortable calling a gun holding Turian by the same name that _Steven Spielberg_ had called his man eating shark in _Jaws._

Bruce gave a smile, which showed his sharp Turian teeth, definately not helping to relieve my discomfort.  
"Sure...he's right behind you."

I frowned in confusion as I turned around without thinking.

_"BOOOO!"_ shouted the man that had snuck up behind me, waving his arms above his head like a maniac. I yelled out in suprise as I staggered backwards, my heart nearly skipping a beat. Both Bruce and this new man burst out in a fit of laughter at my reaction.  
A scowl deepened on my face as I shoved myself away from the counter I had fallen against. Still laughing, Bruce tossed the other man a small credit chit, as if paying off a bet between the two of them.  
"We've always wanted to do that!" said Bruce as he wiped away a tear from his eye, no longer the silent gun polisher he'd been a second ago.

But the man who had scared me was the focus of my full attention at the moment, his appearance being more than enough to turn a few heads. He was a very tall, trim Human who looked to be in his mid fifties. He had dirty blonde hair mixed with a few streaks of gray, and a slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken in a fight. His right eye was a brilliant shade of green, while his left was covered by a black leather eyepatch. On his person he wore knee high leather boots similar to mine, with brown dress paints and a puffy white dress-shirt that was open around the collar. Over top of that he wore a black dining vest buttoned up down the center.  
This guy looked like the clean image of a Pirate of the Caribbean.

The one thing out of place with his outfit however, was an old pair of dog-tags dangling around his neck.

After taking in a few lungfuls of air to calm himself down, the man suddenly straightened up in a military fashion, a broad smile still on his face. Immediately he snapped out his hand in front of me, offered in greeting as he continued to chuckle a bit.

"Major Steve Irwin of the Systems Alliance, at your service sir!" announced the man loudly, his voice thick with a smooth Australian accent. I shook his hand tentatively, still dumbstruck by both his appearance and mannerism.

"M-Major Steve Irwin? Your name is _Steve Irwin_?" I asked, shocked that he had the exact same name as the famous _Crocodile Hunter_, and that he had the same accent as well. Irwin nodded with another laugh, his smile never fading as he released my hand before walking around to the other side of the counter to stand beside Bruce.  
"Born and raised in Sydney Australia, and retired from the Alliance six years ago," Irwin said as he briefly showed off the tags around his neck, before sliding them beneath the fabric of his shirt. I let out a laugh of astonishment at the odds of meeting someone like this, nearly two hundred years after the tragic death of the Steve Irwin I was thinking of.

Dropping his smile somewhat as he became more business like, Irwin tapped a button on the counter, which silenced the sound of Vivaldi's orchastra in mid song. Off to the side, Bruce gave a low groan of annoyance, clearly not appreciating his music being cut off as he continued cleaning his Carniflex.  
After rolling up his sleeves to reveal his large forearms, Irwin leaned forward against the counter with a look of curiosity about him.  
"So mate, what have ya brought?" he said, pulling over my sack that I had placed in front of Bruce. Quickly, I placed a hand on top of the bulging bag, stopping Irwin from opening it.

"First, I was wondering how much I could get for this..." I said as I extended my other hand still holding the katana towards him. The store owner's eye seemed to light up with intrigue as he took the sword with both hands, holding it gingerly as if it might break in his fingers. He carefully turned it over a few times, his single green eye tracing every inch of the blade's leather scabbard.

After what seemed like an eternity of close inspection, Irwin reached out across the counter and pressed another button, never taking his gaze off the weapon. All the orange lights along the walls dimmed down to a lower setting, plunging the room into darkness.

As Irwin pushed aside my sack of junk, he lay the katana down flat on the counter surface. Suddenly a gold beam of light shone across the hilt of the katana, giving off a soft humming noise as it illuminated the small area around the three of us. Irwin then activated his omni-tool, typing in a series of commands on the keyboard. On the counter, the glowing beam began to move up and down the length of the sword.

After a few seconds of what seemed to be a scanning process, the beam of light vanished, while all the lights in the room returned to their normal settings. As the soft orange of the lighting illuminated us once more, I could see Irwin's single eye widened in surprise as he recieved the results on his screen. Suddenly my heart sped up a beat.  
_'What if it doesn't show up as genuine!'_ my thoughts raced through my head as I waited for him to say something. After all, I had only just gotten that thing over an hour ago.

"Incredible..." he breathed, his gaze staying on the tool's screen for a moment longer before de-activating it. Gently picking up the katana to get a final look at it, he looked up at me with a gleaming smile on his face.  
"This sword is over eight hundred years old! And it's in perfect condition!" he exclaimed with excitement, sounding like he had stumbled on a million dollars.

Inwardly I let out a deep sigh of relief, knowing that if the katana was able to pass the test, so would everything else in the sack.

Holding the scabbard in his left hand, Irwin grasped the hilt of the sword with his right and slowly drew it from its sheath. A clear ring sang throughout the room as the blade was drawn forth, the folded samurai steel reflecting off the shine of the lights around us.  
Irwin held the katana before him, gazing at its preserved quality with an unmistakable look of awe.

"Well...not quite in _perfect_ condition," I added in, as the store owner began to notice several nicks and scratches along the blade from where I had struck against the Stormtrooper, and from when I had been using it during my ride in the _SKYLIFT_ elevator.

"How much does the damage bring down the value by?" I asked hesitantly, not really wanting to know how much money I wouldn't be getting. But instead Irwin turned to me as if I were insane.  
"Bring down? Mate, with me this only makes the value go up!" he said with a laugh, putting the empty scabbard onto the counter so he could feel each scratch with his free hand.

"These markings prove that this blade has seen combat, showing us that it was indeed held by a real warrior, be it samurai or otherwise, thats where the true value lies in," Irwin explained as he finished feeling the markings along the blade, retrieving the scabbard right after.

My eyes widened as he said that, and a crooked smile began forming on my face.  
"_Really_? So how much is it worth now?" I asked, now more keen than ever to hear the price. After gazing at either side of the blade a few more times, Irwin carefully slid the katana back into the scabbard with a loud clap.  
Off the top of my head began the store owner as he placed the sword flat onto the counter. To the side, Bruce had finished cleaning his Carniflex, sliding it into a custom built holster on his hip before crossing over to get a better look at the item.

"The lowest amount I could give you for something of this quality would be 200,000 credits, if you want, I am open to bartering for a better price," finished Irwin after calculating the numbers in his head, wearing an almost apologetic look on his face as he said it.

I blinked. The muscles in my jaw had tightened, straining to keep it from dropping to the floor.

"No...200,000 would be just fine, thank you," I managed to say, still stunned by the minimum amount he had offered. He nodded with a smile, taking the sword and handing it over to Bruce. As the Turian went to place the weapon in one of the glass containers littered throughout the room, Irwin reached under the counter and retrieved a gray credit chit that was about as large as a playing card.  
"I noticed you don't have an omni-tool, so I thought you could use this," he said, holding up the chit.

_'Jackpot.'_

I gave a thin smile as I accepted the chit, turning it over to get a full look at it.  
"Actually, I was wondering if I could use some of this to get one of those, if you have them in stock," I said as I slid the chit back across the counter. Irwin scoffed in amusement as he tapped another button in front of him.  
"There's barely anything I don't have mate..." he began as a section of the counter slid open, revealing several different omni-tool models placed on glass pedistals, all of them automatically rising up out of their case to be displayed. I leaned closer to inspect each model, wracking my brain to remember what each tool was capable of back in the game.

_'No...not that one either...or even that one,'_ I kept thinking to myself as I looked at each one, passing over a Bluewire tool, then a Nexus, and then a Polaris. Each was powerful, but there was one model my Mass Effect character had used that could surpass all of them.

"Here it is, I'll take this one," I said over to the store owner, pointing down to the model I had chosen.

"Ah, a Savant X model, pricey but very good quality," said Irwin once he had seen my choice. As he scanned my credit chit with his omni-tool, the security field around the displayed models disengaged, allowing me to take my purchase from its pedistal.  
The device itself was a flexible metalic strap with the Serrice Council logo marked onto the band, along with a single dark button on the side. As I pressed it, the device let out a small humming sound before going silent again, showing that it was active.  
"You need to place it on your forearm mate," Irwin said over to me as he finished scanning my chit, sliding it back across the counter. Slightly shrugging to myself, I complied by sliding the Savant ring over my wrist and up my arm, continuing until it rested comfortably around the centre of my gauntleted forearm.

Suddenly the glowing orange hologram lit up around said forearm, causing me to jump a little.  
"Whoa." I said in surprise, flexing my wrist as I inspected my omni-tool. With the slightest of movements, the shape of the tool expanded and contracted around my arm and hand to compensate, while streams of computer code would flash across the glowing projection. The keyboard that was positioned in the center of the device was surprisingly set up a lot like a computer keyboard from my time, allowing me to quickly get aquainted with the tool's controls and settings.

"Is everything satisfactory sir?" asked Bruce as he stood next to Irwin, having finished placing my katana in its display case. I nodded without looking up, continuing to read the sprawling lines of text on a small screen that had appeared after one of my commands. After I had skimmed through it for a few more seconds, I hit the escape button, which shut down the screen and caused the omni-tool to vanish.  
"This is just what I've been looking for."

"Excellent! Shall we have a look at these other items..." said Irwin with a smile as he patted down the sack still on the counter. Clearly he was very interested in seeing what other treasures I had brought.

Taking hold of the bag, I pulled apart the string keeping the cloth closed together. With a small clatter of metal, I turned the sack upside down and dumped the contents onto the counter. Both Irwin's and Bruce's eyes went wide as they took in the sight of my folded SS uniform and dented samurai armour.  
"And..." I added in, somewhat reluctantly because I knew what their reactions would be.  
"I've got these."

I took off my omni-tool and undid the straps on my samurai gauntlets, feeling a bit relieved as the air got to my now bare forearms. After placing them atop the pile of armour and replacing the Serrice Council product on my arm, I began peeling off the black SS gloves that still encased my hands.

By now Irwin looked as if he had been stabbed in the chest, his face becoming more contorted in disbelief as he began noticing the artifacts that I was wearing on my person.  
"You've been wearing these the whole time?" he nearly shouted as he snatched the gloves from me, ferverently examining each, and taking extra note to the one missing its ring finger. I shrugged as I placed my leather jackboots onto the counter, now standing on the carpeted floor in my socked feet.  
"I was in a bit of a hurry and they were the first things that came to me," I said quickly, thinking up an excuse to explain how I had come to be wearing those items.

But then something strange happened. As soon as I had said that, Irwin's look of dramatic pain slowly changed to one of surprise, and also suspicion. Placing the gloves on top of the armour, Irwin's one eye glanced over at Bruce as he gave the Turian a very subtle nod. Bruce looked at me for a moment before coming out from behind the counter, making his way past me to the tunnel that I had previously entered from.

"What's your name? _Mr_..." Irwin asked, his green eye narrowing on me. I hesitated for a moment, my hand slowly reaching up to my Luger belt, closer to my batch of pistols.

This wasn't good, I had been so eager to sell my baggage that I hadn't considered if Irwin and Bruce had seen the C-Sec footage playing outside. I could tell they were already suspicious from the items that I had brought in, both from the ones in the sack and those that I had been wearing. Plus they had undoubtedly seen the large tears in my T-Shirt that I had gotten from the elevator. If they knew who I was, then they already had me cornered and outnumbered within the thick walled store, effectively cutting off my chances of signalling Alec and Yoda for help.

"_Sorenson_..." I answered his question firmly, my muscles tense and my hands resting on the butts of both my Luger and Bailey's pistol. Irwin leaned forward on the counter, his eye staring intently at me.

"Would that be short for _Axel_ Sorenson?"

My eyes widened.  
_'He _does_ know!'_ Suddenly I heard a metallic click. Snapping my head around, I saw Bruce finish typing a command into a glowing holopad next to the entrance tunnel. The two halves of another large blast door had extended out of the tunnel walls, sealing off the entrance into the main room with a small hiss, the click ringing out as it locked and secured itself.

Both my hands gripped the handles of the pistols simaltaniously, instantly whipping them out from my belt with military efficiency as I pointed them at both of the store keepers. With my Luger pointed at Irwin, and Bailey's pistol pointed back at Bruce, I looked between the two of them, ready for any sudden movements, while also keeping a sharp eye on the Carniflex that hung from Bruce's hip.

But to my surprise, Bruce raised his hands in surrender, his face showing what I could assume was the Turian equivalent of confusion.

"Hey! Whoawhoawhoawhoa!" I heard Irwin saying in a quick tone. Turning my head back to him, I saw that he had his hands stretched out in a none threatening gesture, showing his sign of surrender too.  
"Mate, trust me, we're not turning you in," the Australian said with an amused chuckle, making no movements towards or away from me. That caused me to frown in my own confusion, but my arms remained steady, and my fingers tight on the triggers.

"Why not, I'm a _terrorist_ remember, who has a pretty big bounty on his head," I said coldly.

"Firstly Axel, money is the last thing I need..." Irwin began, his hands still raised and his feet still planted where they were.  
"He's not joking," I heard Bruce say behind me.

"And secondly..." Irwin began, suddenly fumbling over his words as he tried to think of something to say. After a few seconds of opening and closing his mouth like a fish, he gave a weak shrug accompanied by a sigh of defeat.  
"...frankly there's nothing to gain from you or your friends' capture, and you've done me no wrong, so I have no reason to go against you," the store keeper said finally, as he spread his arms out wide to expose the center of his chest, giving me a clear shot at his heart.

I gave him a piercing look for a moment, measuring up both him and Bruce as the Turian came around the counter with his hands still raised.  
_'I still need those supplies,'_ I thought as my eyes twitched back and forth, measuring each choice in my mind. Finally I made my decision.

Letting out a deep sigh, hoping that I wouldn't regret it later on, I reached over and placed my pistols on the counter next to the pile of items.

"Alright...but just to clear things up, this whole man-hunt that's after me is a huge mistake..." I began as I unbuckled the Luger belt, placing it and James Forsenski's Kessler with the others. However, I still held onto Alexandre Henri's flintlock pistol.  
"And this whole terrorist ruse, was my _partner's_ idea," I said, aggressively jabbing my thumb over to the locked door that led to the Corridor. Both Irwin and Bruce had light smiles on their faces, happy that we had come to a peaceful resolution.  
"We never took you for one anyway," Irwin said gladly with a shake of his head.

With a sweep of my hand, I indicated everything that I had piled onto the counter.  
"What's your best guess for everything you see here?" I asked. Scanning the pile with his eye, Irwin gave another smile as he nodded his head in satisfaction. "With the quality of these items, and the value of the two pistols..." said the retired Major as he pointed to both Forsenski's and Bailey's hand guns.

"My least amount would come up to around 15 million credits," he said. I groaned at the absurdity of the sum while shaking my head, not really bothering to be surprised anymore.

"Alright fine...I'll take it," I said.

"Excellent!" said Irwin as he activated his omni-tool, transferring the funds to me immediately. My Savant X appeared around my forearm, with a small screen asking if I would accept the transaction, to which I hit enter. (I always wanted to be a millionaire!) As my omni-tool vanished again, I looked back at the two.  
"Well now that my omni-tool is 15 million credits richer, I think I'd like to buy some gear before I make my great escape," I said, glancing down at the dozens of weapons displayed within the glass cases under the counters.

Suddenly Irwin got an evil twinkle in his one eye, and a mischievious grin on his face.  
"I think I've got just the things you're looking for," he said as he slipped out from behind the counter, making his way over to a section of the wall that wasn't obscured by a counter or display case.

As he made his way up the three ring steps encircling us, I turned back to Bruce, handing him Alexandre's flintlock.  
"Do you think you'd be able to make this work again?" I asked as the Turian took the ancient rusted pistol in his taloned hands. He gave me a puzzled look. "You want me to _fix_ this thing...so you can keep it?" he asked, perplexed at the thought. I nodded back to him as I began following Irwin.

"I don't know why, but I want to keep it as a sort of momento, and in working order if thats at all possible." Bruce nodded with a shrug, not really interested in questioning me as he went over to a large machine sitting atop the third curved counter in the broken circle. I truely didn't know if it could be useful in the future, but it did have some sentimental value, being the second of the only two things I had left from the Earth I'd come from, it and my weathered _ROOTS_ wallet which I still had in my pocket.

In front of me, Irwin was using his right hand to feel along a small crack in the wall. After a few moments of searching, his hand brushed against a small hidden switch. Immediately a loud groan rang out, followed by a creaking sound as a rectangular section of the wall depressed and then slid to the side, revealing a secret compartment behind it.

My eyes widened with intrigue. Hanging within, with all its accessories, was some kind of intricate suit of armour. The basic body suit itself was all black, made from a tight form fitting material. Along the shoulders and down the arms were small, sleak armour plates, spaced evenly like snake scales, each one painted a dark red colour. On the chest there was a detailed armour breast plate painted in black, one that covered most of the pectoral areas, with smaller interlocking plates covering the abdominals.  
The legs had curved knee plates, also painted black, while wearing another pair of knee high black leather combat boots. (Who'd of thought, everyone rides horses on the Citadel)  
On the forearms were two black armoured gauntlets, each one showing unique settings and applications built into them. Along with that, the suit had a pair of black leather gloves with small plates on the knuckles and the backs of the hands.

"I've been saving it for myself in case of an emergency, but I think you might need it more than I would," Irwin said beside me.  
"What is it?" I asked, leaning in closer to examine every small detail on the suit, including the utility belt wrapped around the waist.  
"Something I've been putting together over the last few years, a high class infiltration suit that uses a mix of Council Spectre, Terminus pirate, and pieces built exclusively for Alliance N7 commandos," explained the store owner, gesturing to the faded and broken red stripe going down the suit's right arm, along with a scratched N7 insignia on the chest plate that I hadn't noticed.

"What if I'm not that great of an infiltrator?" I asked with a glance over to him. He smiled as he gave one of the shoulder plates a punch with his fist, causing a hard thud to ring out.  
"Thats fine, this armour is made out of a mixture of hardened _Palladium_ fibres, the same kind they use in the construction of Council Warships..." he began as we both looked over each of the armour plates.  
"If you're the type to go in guns blazing, this armour is strong enough to stop Incindiary ammo dead in its tracks, and the shield strength..." he continued, leaning over and pressing a button on the utility belt. A blue haze flickered around the suit for a moment before dissipating, accompanied by a short humming noise.  
"...is enough to deflect the direct blast of a frag grenade!" Irwin finished proudly. I was awe-struck, pressing the button on the belt that caused the shield to flicker away.

"You said it was built for infiltration, how good are its stealth capabilities?" I asked, forcing my eyes away from the beautiful suit. In answer, and with that same knowing smile on him, Irwin reached over and tapped a button on the suit's left gauntlet.

Instantly the suit disappeared from sight! (Yay for Kasumi!)  
"Active camouflage, a little favour I was able to pull from some of my Batarian and Alliance contacts," he said as he pressed the button again, since his hand was still holding the invisible gauntlet. The suit reappeared in a pixeled flicker.

_'Advanced technology and contacts in the Terminus Systems?'_ I thought suspiciously for a moment, briefly glancing at Irwin's black eye-patch and dog-tags. _'This guy must have gotten around in his day.'_

With a broad smile of my own, I turned to him.  
"So how much?" I asked, waiting with anticipation. Irwin scratched his chin, mixed in thought for a moment.

"It cost me about 3 million to privately purchase the different pieces to it, but I think I could quickly give it to you for about 2.5," he said finally.  
"I'll take it!" I said almost in disbelief, more than satisfied with the price as I activated my omni-tool. Irwin gave another smile as he activated his own, subtracting the funds from the compartment he had used when giving me the 15 million just a few minutes ago. After the funds had been cleared, Irwin input a code on his keyboard.  
Over on the far side of the room another large blast door parted away, revealing a dark corridor that led to another door farther down. A glowing red hologram hovered above this one, spelling out the word _EXIT_.

"Well mate, you'd better suit up and get out of here, before C-Sec decides to come kicking down my door," Irwin said as he jabbed a thumb over to the sealed door behind him.

* * *

"Sirs! I think you should take a look at this!" called over a Turian pilot stationed within the large cockpit of the Ray gunship. Both Bailey and Chellick walked up behind the pilot's seat, each of them looking over one of the man's shoulders.  
"What is it?" asked Chellick.

In front of the pilot was a console with a large screen. Displayed for the three of them, the pilot had brought up a broad thermal image of the Market Corridor where their fugitive's last known position had been recorded. At the moment the image showed the Corridor to be filled with the heat signatures of both civilians and C-Sec agents, as the Citadel personnel continued to control the crowd that Axel had used to cover his escape.

"Search teams 2 and 7 have cleared out three of the five stores you indicated sir," another pilot called over to Bailey, as the lieutenants watched the images of the mixed squads of agents marching up and down the Corridor amidst the mob of civilians. Chellick leaned over and tapped the screen, highlighting one store in particular.  
"Tell team 3 to search _'Irwin's Weapons and Antiques'_, that one's the closest to where Axel was last spotted."

"I was just about to sir, but then these things started showing up!" the pilot said to Bailey and Chellick as he quickly keyed in a series of commands on his console. Suddenly the image changed, showing not only heat images, but cold ones as well. Both Chellick and Bailey's eyes widened once they saw what else was on screen.  
"What the hell are those!" said Bailey as he brought his head closer. As the heat signatures from the Turians and civilians continued to move about the Corridor, several grey images had begun to slowly move around them. As Bailey tapped a few buttons, the image cleared to its maximum resolution.

The grey images sharpened into something frightening.  
They appeared to be _creatures_ of some kind! Covered in sharp plates sticking out along their backs, with long skeletal bodies and sharp claws on their abnormally long hands and feet, these long dome headed serpents had begun moving with lighting speed across the Corridor.

"That can't be, grey means dead, lifeless!" said Chellick, observing the heatless creatures move easily around the edges of the un-knowing crowd.  
"They're using air ducts and the shadows along the ceilings for cover," the pilot said to both of them. Bailey shot his head over to his Turian co-worker.  
"Those men need to be warned Chellick!"

With a swift nod, Chellick tapped the radio piece set in his ear. "Search leader, come in!"

* * *

Down in the Corridor the Turians were scrambling to keep the terrified crowd under control. Luckily unlike the riot that had happened in the park, the agents were successful in quickly calming down the civilians, while also having some spare hands to assist in the man hunt for Axel and his accomplices.

After several dozen Human, Salarian, Turian and Asari agents poured into the mass of bodies to help keep order, the Turian squad that had already been on the scene were able to make their way through the civilains to search each store that Lieutenant Bailey had radioed in. The sounds of panicked shouting, coupled with agents barking orders echoed loudly off the metal walls, making communication between Chellick and the Turian squad leader difficult.

"Say again lieutenant! I didn't copy!" shouted the Turian as he cupped his hand to the side of his helmet, the shouting from the civilians drowning out Chellick's voice. The marching of another Search Team cut through the mob as they broke off towards the fourth of the five stores on their list.

_"...un-known life-forms...your vicinity!"_ Chellick's voice was barely intelligible, coming through as a broken garble. After several minutes of shoving, the Turians were able to break through the outer ring of the crowd, back towards the spot where Axel had last been seen. Since the majority of the civilians had been running away from him when the chaos had begun, this area was clear of people and was thankfully less noisy than the rest of the Corridor.

"That's a negative lieutenant, we can't see anything down here!" the leader yelled into his headset, still catching some background noise from the crowd. _"They're crossing over the ceiling, using the shadows and air ducts to hide their movements!"_ said Chellick, coming through more clearly.  
With a snap movement from the squad leader's hand, the Turians immediately raised their weapons up towards the dark catwalks and support beams high above them. As the squad began to fan out, the lead Turian thought he could hear a small clicking sound echoing off the metal.

"I'm telling you Chellick, your instruments are giving false readings, there's nothing down here..." began the Turian. But then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. As he adjusted the sights on his assault rifle scope, he froze in shock. Torn into the side of a large air duct going across the width of the Corridor, was a large jagged hole, big enough for a person to crawl through.  
But as the Turian zoomed in, he had caught a faint glimpse of what had caused it.

A long wiry tail, slick with translucent slime, and covered in spiked black armour plates was quickly slithering into the air duct tunnel, disappearing into the darkness with a small scuttle sound.

"We are registering over twenty contacts closing in on..." began Chellick, but the squad leader cut him off as his eyes followed along the air vent to the store it connected into.

_"Irwin's Weapons and Antiques..."_ said the Turian foreboadingly as he read the glowing golden sign.

* * *

As he krept even closer, Alec slowly pressed his back against the side of the trash compactor, quietly standing up from his haunches to his full height. Holding his right hand level with his face, his talons still extended, Alec took a deep breath before lunging forward around the corner.

"AHAAA!" he shouted, holding his claws high above his head as he put on his most wicked grin. He had been intending to scare out whatever had been hiding behind the compactor, but as he stood there frozen in his fearsome pose, his face dropped into a deep frown as he retracted his talons. In front of him was nothing but an empty space, covered in grime and dust that had built up over years of neglect.  
"There's nothing back here!" he called over to Yoda, being careful not to be overheard by the mob of civilians and C-Sec standing just a few feet from the alleyway entrance.

But Yoda was barely able to hear him, his mind had now become a burning haze, as more disturbances rippled across the Force. The Master was pressing his hands deep against his temples, his lightsaber hilt having dropped to the floor. His eyes were wedged shut as he cringed forward, the pain reaching new heights as more ripples flashed against his mind.

_'Not just one, dozens now, they are everywhere!'_ He strained as he fought harder to clear away their dark presence from his thoughts, easing the pain in his skull one by one.  
The creature that Yoda had sensed earlier had now been joined by dozens of others, each one as savage and malicious as the original. It felt as if they truly were one with the shadows, each mind screeching to each other as they flashed from one area to the next, moving with almost un-natural speed. As Yoda cleared his mind, he eased his muscles and focused his concentration on the direction the creatures were headed in.

Suddenly his eyes flashed open as he learned which store they were massing towards.

"Alec, Axel is...!" the Master began as he tried to warn Alec of the new danger. But then something caused him to stop, for a new disturbance had just touched his mind.  
This creature was different from the others that surrounded everyone. It still held the same murderous instinct that Yoda could feel radiating from the others, but it held a more civilized mind, not one of a wild killing machine.

The mind Yoda could feel now was that of a warrior forged in battle...and also one of a _hunter_, bred to kill its prey at any cost.

"Yoda, what are you talking about?" asked Alec. But as he started towards the Jedi, he heard a faint splash sound behind him, as if a drop of water had fallen onto the floor. As he turned around, he noticed a small wet spot that had formed amidst the dust layers covering the metal flooring. Cocking his head with curiousity, Alec knelt down on one knee and pressed the tip of his gloved index finger onto the wet surface. But as he pulled his hand back, the liquid stuck to his finger and elongated into a thick, slimy substance.  
"Ewick," said Alec in disgust, a repulsed look already on his face as he flicked the slime off his finger.

_'Kill...kill...kill for our Mother.'_ Yoda's eyes widened as he sensed the thoughts of the savage being.  
"Alec! Close one of the creatures is!" the Jedi shouted as he quickly retrieved his lightsaber from the floor.  
"_What_ creatures?" shouted back the Guardian as he turned his head in Yoda's direction.

But as he did, he suddenly felt something very cold travel past his cheek. Slowly turning back, Alec could just make out several streams of thick translucent slime slithering down in front of his face, barely seeing them in the orange lighting of the alleway. It was the same slime that he had just picked up a second ago. Up overhead, he could feel his hair part away slightly as a deep cold breath was blown against it, from the same source as the slime still trickling down in front of him.

"Well...shit." Alec said with a straight face, as Axel's memories began flooding into his mind, causing him to recognise the deadly creature that was surely perched just above him. As these memories came to him, the creature let out its iconic screeching hiss.

* * *

I flexed my fingers as I slipped on the suit's second glove. Other than the knee high boots, the whole thing was a slightly large for me, but at the moment I didn't have time to be picky. I was amazed at how light the entire suit was, the snake scale like armour was spread out enough to cover most of my torso and legs, and yet it was evenly spaced and flexible enough to give me an almost un-limited range of motion. As I had been putting on the suit, Irwin had begun explaining some of the other gadgets that he had added over the years, other than the cloaking system.

He showed me that in my left gauntlet was a small grappling hook, capable of being fired from said gauntlet while attached to nearly three hundred feet of thin steel cable compressed into the device.  
"The cable is only strong enough to carry around 380 pounds mate," he'd said to me after I had told him my weight was around 195.  
"If you're carrying an object, or another person with you, make sure that they are no heavier than 185 pounds, otherwise the cable will slow down...and eventually snap."  
I nodded as I understood his warning.

"As for this one..." Irwin said as he indicated the gauntlet on my right arm.  
"It contains a self reloading dart mechanism, capable of firing tracking, tranquilizer, and even cloakable listening darts," Irwin continued to explain.  
_'Speaking of darts...'_ I thought off handedly to myself, remembering the strange tranq dart that I had secretly moved from my old cargo pants to one of the suit's pockets.

"Oh, and there is one more thing..." began Irwin, his mischievious smile returning for a second time. I barely had time to ask what he was alluding to, when suddenly the suit let out a deep humming sound, as several small red lights along the suit's gauntlets and chest plate glowed to life. As I gazed at my chest, I suddenly felt the black fabric of the suit contract and tighten in all the places that had felt loose on me.  
As it finished, I realized that the suit had automatically modified itself to fit my body size.

Right after, a deep male voice with sharp pronunciation spoke.

_"All suit functions now operating at 100% efficiency...greetings Axel Sorenson, I am Haxon-17, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."_

I nearly jumped at the sound of the voice, coming clearly through the small radio ear-piece I had placed snuggly within my ear.  
"Is that an _A.I_.?" I asked as I shot Irwin a look. Irwin gave a small nod as he gestured to the suit.  
"Haxon started out as a military Virtual Intelligence program for the Alliance. Back when I was younger I was able to rescue him from being dis-assembled after his line of model became obsolete," Irwin explained.

_"In the years following, Mr. Irwin began adding susbstancial improvments to my processing software and digital network, thus allowing me to gradually attain self-awareness, transforming me into a complete Artificial Intelligence,"_ Haxon finished from within my ear.

"So, what level of improvements are we talking about?" I asked. Irwin laughed.  
"Lets just say that by now, Avina's got nothing on him."  
"You do know A.I. are illegal, right?" I asked, pretty sure he already knew the dangers. Irwin inclined his head slightly, his one eye narrowing in on me.

"So is dealing with a terrorist..."

I was about to agree with that point when Haxon spoke again.  
"_I am detecting multiple C-Sec agents converging towards the outer blast doors, I recommend that you leave the premises immediately Mr. Sorenson."_ Irwin quickly shot a stern look over to Bruce. The Turian nodded in response as he began sliding the samurai armour and SS uniform off the counter top into a small reinforced container.  
"Haxon's right, those doors are strong enough to withstand a rocket launcher, but they'll only last a few minutes against C-Sec hacking systems," said Irwin as he turned back to me.

"I can't leave yet, I still need weapons," I said quickly, glancing back at the display counters to see if there were any better models than Forsenski's Kessler or Bailey's pistol, which at the moment were still laying on the counter top. Irwin cracked that mischievious smile for the umpteenth time as he looked back over towards the Turian.

"Hey Bruce! Show Axel the advanced stock," Irwin called to his partner. Bruce popped his head up from behind the counter, having just finished sealing the container he had been placing all of my sold items in.  
"_All_ of it?" he asked in astonishment, as if Irwin had just asked him to hand over the launch codes to a nuclear missile. Irwin nodded, never losing his smile.

"..._all_ of it."

Bruce stood up and activated his omni-tool, from which he pressed a glowing red button. Immediately several compartments within the counters sild open, revealing several different weapon types that were all folded into their travel easy form, each with an assortment of different models. My mouth was having a hard time staying closed as we both hurried back towards the counters.

"So, what _are_ you exactly! A gun smuggler, a privateer?" I asked Irwin suddenly after gazing at every different selection, no longer able to hold back my thoughts on everything I was learning about this guy.

From what I had gathered: Irwin had contacts in the Terminus Systems, he had developed and was housing an illegal A.I., he had advanced weapons stashed in secret compartments, he was willing to work with a known criminal, and he was able to just give away millions in credits as if he had another billion hidden somewhere else!

Bruce gave a light snicker as he went back to check on the machine that was still repairing Alexandre's flintlock. Irwin was rubbing the back of his neck, clearly a bit uncomfortable having to explain his occupation, or his past.  
"Well...yes, I did have a bit of a checkered past when I was younger," he said, sounding a bit sheepish as he spoke. Eager to change the subject, Irwin reached in and pulled out an advanced black and white pistol that was about the same size as a Carniflex. Along the side of the barrel was a small black and blue M5.

"Smuggled or not mate, I guarantee you these things'll pack a hell of a bigger punch than standard issue weapons, take a look at this one," he said as he handed me the weapon. I took it with my left hand, inspecting each side as I tested the weight.  
"I've never seen this kind before, what model is it?" I asked.

But suddenly before Irwin could answer, my ears flared up with a painful ringing noise, drowing out what the store keeper was saying. My body stiffened as I did my best to hide the discomfort that I was enduring, the muscles in my jaw and neck tightening to supress the constant ringing going on in my head. My vision had also been blocked, replacing my view of Irwin with names, actions, blueprints and lines of computer code.  
I endured the stress for a few more seconds, as the last pieces of knowledge and information were imparted to me, before finally the ringing abruptly ceased.

My eyes shot to my right hand to see if the ring had activated, which was now fully covered since I was using the suit's gloves instead of my SS glove with the missing ring finger. But as I looked more closely, I could see a very faint silver light glowing through the seams of the leather.  
_'I just Mind Mended again, without even trying,'_ I thought to myself.

Suddenly I heard a loud snap of someone's fingers right next to my face. I quickly jerked as I looked back at Irwin, who was looking at me with one cocked eyebrow.  
"This isn't the time to be dosing off mate!" he said, annoyance somewhat evident in his voice. After he said that, the knowledge I wanted suddenly came to me, obviously a result of the Mind Mending.

"Uh, yeah sorry!" I said quickly as I shook my head to clear my brain.  
"The _M5 Phalanx_, one of the latest models off the assembly lines, right?" I said, hoping the information that I'd un-wittingly downloaded was what he had been trying to tell me before. Irwin seemed to brighten up as he cracked a smile.  
"Yes exactly, pretty soon every N7 commando in the Alliance will be carrying one of these with them in the field." Bruce cast a glance over his shoulder as he worked away at the machine.  
"Why not add one of those new Spectre assault rifles to go with it?" he said. Irwin nodded in agreement as he indicated the rifle rack just in front of us.

Thats when an idea hit me.

"Actually, I was thinking of doing this..." I began as I lay the Phalanx down in front of me to activate my Savant X. As it turned out, the knowledge of the pistol wasn't the only thing the Mind Mending had downloaded for me, it had also given everything I needed to know about my omni-tool as well.

After accessing the tool's applications on the keyboard, I was able to project a glowing orange 3D image of the _HMWA Master Assualt Rifle_ that Bruce had indicated before. Both Irwin and Bruce were gazing intently at the image hovering before them, curious about what I was going to do next. As I rotated the glowing hologram, I began punching in a few more codes onto the keyboard. Suddenly the images of an _HMWSR Master Sniper Rifle_, as well as an _HMWSG Master Shotgun_ materialized on either side of the assault rifle.

After cracking the knuckles on my right hand, my fingers suddenly began to fly across the keyboard faster than all three of us could register. In truth I didn't really know what I was doing, my body seemed to be running on autopilot with the help of the knowledge I had downloaded from the ring. I knew what I wanted to have happen, and luckily the inner part of my brain that had gotten the message knew of a way to _make_ it happen.

As the steady rythm of keyboard clicks echoed thoughout the store, the three holograms seemed to break apart. Each of them dis-assembled themselves and spread their inner pieces out across the projector's field of view.  
_'Just like field stripping your weapon Axel,'_ I thought to myself as I remembered my Army training courses, as well as the daily routine I had had to follow during my time on base in Afghanistan.

After about a minute, the pieces from all three of the weapons were suddenly being manipulated into a single frame, a single weapon that was capable of folding from one type of weapon into another with the mere flick of a button!

Finally, after every piece from the three seperate guns had been combined together, and after I had made sure I wouldn't be getting a carpal tunnel from the amount of key strokes I had just done, I presented the finished hologram to Bruce and Irwin.

The men stared at the floating hologram for a second, both of them neither moving or speaking. This time it was Bruce's turn to keep his jaw from hitting the floor, as Irwin blinked hard before bringing his head closer over the counter to get an even better look at what I had just created. The store keeper quickly brought his own omni-tool up and took a scan of the new weapon. Once he got his readings back, his one green eye nearly bulged out of its socket.  
"Well? Can we make it?" asked Bruce, his interest in the weapon clearly showing as he tried to look over Irwin's shoulder. Irwin looked back at me, his eye remaining wide with shock.

"_We can_! And we can even do it quickly!" Irwin said, giving a quick glance over to the sealed inner blast door that would slow down C-Sec once they finally decided to break in.

As I held still for a moment, Irwin downloaded the design I had created into his own omni-tool, and from there he transferred it into another large machine similar to the one Bruce was using to fix Alexandre's flintlock pistol. After his omni-tool vanished, he entered a three digit code onto the console attached to the machine. As soon as this was put in, a large compartment on the machine opened up, the inside being filled with small robotic arms and different pincer like appendages.

"Alright mate, toss me those weapons quickly!" Irwin said as he turned arond, clearly he was excited to see this new weapon in its final form.  
_'And I'm just as excited to get out of here so I can avoid being thrown in prison for the rest of my life,'_ I thought as I threw over the Spectre assault rifle, shotgun and sniper rifle, before coming around the counter myself to the awating Ausse. Carefully Irwin caught the three guns and activated each, causing them to extend out into their battle ready forms before placing them side by side into the machine's compartment.

"So how long do you think it'll take?" I asked as I watched him seal the compartment and input a final code into the console.  
"While working at top speed, the computer says it should take about 12 minutes for the entire thing to finalize," said the store owner as he leaned against the counter. I looked un-comfortably over at the sealed doors.  
_'I should have just enough time.'_

But right away, I came to regret thinking that.

_"Power drainage detected!"_ came the crisp voice of Haxon-17.

Irwin looked over at me with his brow furrowed, as if this announcement was something un-usual to him.  
"Can you trace which section it's coming from?" asked the Australian as he looked around the room. The orange lights that had been giving us a constant source of illumination had now begun to flicker sporatically, some of them were flashing on and off, while others had simply burnt out entirely.

_"That's just it Steven, this is happening across the entire Corridor with every power grid suffering the same problems, almost as if they're being sabotaged!"_ reported the AI. I looked over towards the machine that was still creating my super weapon. The glowing numbers on the screen read _11:35._

"If the power goes out, will that thing keep running?" I asked as I pointed to the machine. Irwin nodded as he activated his omni-tool to check on the rest of the store's systems.  
"This machine runs on its own battery, but if this drainage keeps up, we might be making that super gun of yours..." began the store owner, when all of a sudden there was a a loud crash, right before every light in the room immediatley shut off, plunging the three of us into complete darkness.

"...in the dark," finished Irwin with a dramatic sigh as he activated the flashlight on his omni-tool, giving us a brilliant beam of white light that illuminated the area around us.

"Did you find out what caused it?" I asked Haxon, pressing my hand gently against my ear. But before the A.I. could properly answer me, a large burst of sparks suddenly erupted from the counter closest to Bruce, causing the Turian to intinctively rip his Carniflex from its holster.

"What the hell was that?" said Bruce as he pointed his pistol at the smoking hole the explosion had caused. While trying not to breath in the whisps of smoke, I leaned closer to the damaged counter with my own omni-tool flashlight active, shining the light onto the small crater that had formed afterwards.  
But as my eyes scanned the damage, I knew right away that something was un-usual.

A small hissing sound was coming from within, and as I looked closer I could see a dark green liquid eating away at the inner circuits. More smoke rose up from the counter, the steaming hole growing deeper and wider, as the strange liquid continued to devoure everything it had touched.  
"Its _acid_!" I said as all three of us stepped away from the counter.

Suddenly a horrifying thought came to me.  
_'The power has gone out, and acid just dripped from the ceiling...'_ My eyes widened as I reached out and gripped Bruce by the shoulder, both of us still staring warily at the dissolving counter.  
"Does this place have emergency lights?" I whispered into his ear, my eyes glancing over at my Phalanx pistol still laying on top of the other counter. Bruce nodded slowly, his Carniflex still at the ready.

"Turn them on right _now_!" I ordered under my breath, as I turned my head towards the ceiling, praying that I wouldn't see what I thought was up there. Bruce quickly activated his omni-tool and input a code. Immediately a low humming sound vibrated throughout the room, one that got higher and higher in pitch before fading away. Right after, several white lights flickered to life along the perimiter of the floor and ceiling, illuminating the many relief carvings of the Greek and Norse gods that looked down on us.

"Ah bugger! That ceiling cost me a fortune!" Irwin said angrily as he de-activated his omni-tool. I squinted upwards to see what he was talking about, my heart racing with adrenaline. Within a few seconds I found what Irwin had seen, a large steaming black hole that was melted into where Zeus's head had once been carved.  
"Irwin, I think we've got bigger problems than..." I began.

And then I saw it! My blood turned to ice as my heart stopped beating for a moment.

Out of the darkness that had replaced Zeus's head, a long thin arm extended into the light. Several sharp gray spikes jutted out from the forearm, with the rest of the skin surrounding them being jet black, all of this was covered in a thick translucent slime that reflected off the glare of the nearby lights. On its hand were six long clawed fingers, each one digging into the melted stone of the ceiling, pulling the second arm and the rest of the body out into the light.

The creature that now clung to the ceiling was exactly what I had been fearing.

It was a _Xenomorph_, the deadly species from the _Alien_ trilogy that would burst from a victim's chest, and grow into a fearsome killing machine only a few hours later. Each of these things was built around a Hive social structure, all of them willing to serve and die for their matriarch, _The Queen_.

_'I sure as hell hope I didn't bring one of those in with it..."_

"What is that thing?" Bruce whispered over to me, while off to the side Irwin silently grabbed another Phalanx pistol from one of the compartments. As if it had heard the Turian, the Xenomorph turned it's large curved head down towards the three of us. With the illumination from the emergency lights, we could see it's eyeless face begin to contort into a look of pure rage. Its black lips began to quiver and retract upwards, baring its sharp gleaming teeth at us, as thick streams of slime fell from its mouth and face.

With a snap motion it lunged its head forward, opening its snake like mouth to un-natural proportions, and let out an earsplitting hissing screech that echoed throughout the store.

"A threat, _SHOOT IT_!" I ordered as I snatched my own Phalanx from the other counter. All three of us immediately raised our weapons to the ceiling and opened fire!

The Xenomorph moved like a shadow; as soon as the first blasts had left our barrels it had already dodged to the side, easily avoiding the barrage that shredded into the carving of Zeus. Each of us began firing at will, lighting up the darkened areas of the store with red flashes, as our blasts began chasing the creature across the ceiling. Stone chippings began raining down in front of us as our rounds started riddling the carvings with bullet holes. Suddenly the Xeno changed its direction, crossing downward over a carving of Tyr, and vanishing into the darkness that the emergency lights couldn't reach!

"Keep firing! We can still catch it!" shouted Irwin over the blasts as he and Bruce activated the flashlights on their omni-tools. With a signal from the former Major, Bruce and Irwin began to periodically blind fire rounds into the section of wall the Alien had disappeared into.

But I restrained myself, something had just caught my eye. Using my thumb, I pressed a small button on the side of the Phalanx, causing a piercing blue laser beam to appear in front of it. As the red flashes from Irwin and Bruce's blasts continued to briefly light up the wall, I could make out the slight outline of something moving down towards the floor level.

Closing one eye, I lined up the pistol's laser sight as close to the object as I could. In quick succession, I fired three shots into the darkness.

The first two sunk loudly into the metal walls, but thankfully, the third and final blast caused a hissing (and personally satisfying I might add) scream of pain to ring out from the darkness.  
"Over there! FIRE!" I barked to the other two. All three of us aimed up to where the scream had come from and let loose.

An entire blanket of red blasts sunk into the wall. The combined flashes were more than enough to illuminate the wounded Xenomorph, who at the moment was holding onto its side as it clung to the wall, surrounded by smoke as both the blasts and its acid blood began seeping into the metal. But even while wounded, the Alien was still able to skirt from side to side, dodging most of the fire being thrown at it.

After a few seconds of constant shooting however, it let out another scream of pain as Bruce sent a round tearing into its shoulder, followed by a shot to its left knee by Irwin. (ever heared the one about the Skyrim meme?)  
Before it could dart away again, and with my laser beam still active, I lined up the Xeno once more and fired a single round that caught the creature in the side of the head.

The Xenomorph screamed in rage as it lost its grip on the wall, plummeting down to the floor with a spray of acid blood trailing behind it. It tummbled head first as it fell, somersaulting end over end as it came smashing down onto one of the display cases set about the room, sprawled out on its back. We shielded our eyes as glass shards exploded away from the case, the acid raining down around the wounded Alien.  
Beside me I could hear small beeping alarms going off as Irwin and Bruce began frantically tapping at the buttons on their pistols.  
"I've overheated!" Bruce shouted to Irwin. The Australian swore as he smacked the side of his gun.  
"So've I!"

"I got it!" I shouted without looking to them as I vaulted over top of the counter in front of me.

Quickly I ran up and launched myself over the three ring steps in a single leap, landing on the store's main level only a few feet from the smashed case. The area around the case was steaming hot, with hundreds of small holes burning into the carpeted floor from the Xeno's acid. As I walked closer to the smashed center, I could hear with each step the crunching of glass and wood that had landed in a huge radius after the creature had crashed.

_"Be careful Mr. Sorenson, my scans show that the corrosive substance in your vacinity is thirty times stronger than that of hydrochloric acid. If you come into contact with sufficient quantities, it will burn straight through both your boots and feet,"_ said Haxon as I began snaking my way through the mine field of burning holes, taking the A.I.'s warning to heart as I began carefully plotting my path towards the case. Once I had come to within a short distance of the destroyed case, I stopped and aimed my Phalanx at the motionless body that lay within its remains.

Even with the shadows cast from the emergency lights, the Xenomorph looked like it had been put through a meat grinder. The damage that Irwin had done to its knee had caused the entire bottom half of its left leg to be ripped off after the force of its impact. Large half melted glass shards protruded from the Xeno's thin abdomen, covering most of the creature in its dark green blood. Torn ligaments and blood spewing muscles could also be seen sticking out from the wounds that Bruce and I had shot into it.

As my weapon arm began to relax, I could hear a faint gurgling sound coming from the Alien's mouth. Before I could do anything, the Xenomorph raised its head in my direction, its mouth still angrily baring its sharp teeth at me, spitting out gobs of slime laced with acid blood.

_'It's still alive?'_ I thought, dumbfounded.

My last shot that had struck the creature in the head had caused a large section of its face to hang off by several strands of its black leathery skin. A large stream of blood flowed down the side of its body from this fatal wound. With a last blood gurgling hiss, its clawed hands grabbed what was left of the shattered case as it tried to pull itself up to attack me.

But with instant reflexes, I straightened my Phalanx arm and fired a single round through the center of its skull. A blast of acid shot out of the back of its head onto the wall behind, as the rest of the creature fell back into its death crib with a small cry.

_"The creature..."_ began Haxon, but the A.I. was cut off by the sharp crack of two more blasts as I fired into the Alien's chest. Thankfully this time there was no sound from the body as it jerked backwards.  
"Never underestimate these things..." I said under my breath as a small alarm rang out on my pistol, showing that my last shot had caused my gun to overheat just as Bruce's and Irwin's had before.

"Did you get it?" called the Turian from behind me. I nodded as I kept my eyes on the Xeno's body.  
"Its dead now," I answered as I turned and quickly made my way back to the center of the room. Down behind the ring of counters, Irwin had begun typing into his omni-tool in an attempt to open the blast doors to the Corridor outside.

"Its no use, without power those doors won't budge," he said finally in defeat as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.  
"So you're saying we're _locked in_?" I asked with a start, looking over towards the sealed blast doors. Bruce holstered his Carniflex as he looked up to the destroyed ceiling, the once beautiful carvings of the gods were now nothing more then cracked and bullet torn wrecks.

"I for one don't care about that right now, what I'd really like to know is where that thing came from," the Turian stated firmly, turning around to face me with a look of expectancy. I sighed as I shook my head.  
"I don't know, hopefully where ever it did come from there won't be..." I began, when suddenly several familiar hissing screeches echoed out from the dark hole in the ceiling where the Xenomorph had crawled out of.

"...anymore behind it!" I finished angrily as we all shot our gazes up to the ceiling.  
"Irwin, tell me you smuggled in something bigger than these," I said over to the store owner as I attached my Phalanx to a small clip on my utility belt, letting it hang off my side.

"Firstly I don't smuggle anymore, and secondly..." he said as he pressed a button on the counter behind him. The entire metal casing retracted into the floor, revealing a long object that looked like a large gray Bazooka, held in place by metal braces. As Irwin retracted the braces, he grasped the weapon with both hands before pressing a small button. Immediately the cylinder weapon extended a ring of six long connected barrels down its center, while also extending a handle-grip and trigger on the bottom, and a metal bar along the top.

"Thats a damn mini-gun!" I said as I stepped back away from Irwin. The Australian put on an evil grin as he held the weapon with one hand grasping the metal bar, while the other held onto the handle-grip.  
"Pretty close, this baby'll shred through anything with over 6,000 rounds per minute!" Irwin activated several settings on side of the gun, causing its six barrels to begin rotating slowly as it warmed up.  
"Axel, catch!" I heard Bruce call from behind. As I quickly turned around, Bruce tossed over a Master Shotgun and a Master Assault Rifle, to which I caught in each hand.

Another screeching hiss rang out from the ceiling, this time louder, as the sharp scuttling of the Xenomorphs began scratching closer and closer towards their makeshift entrance. As me and the Turian activated our Spectre assault rifles (and after a very quick Mind Mending session) all three of us spread apart, aiming our weapons up towards Zeus's shattered carving.

_"Hostile organic lifeforms will cross into the store's interior within fifteen seconds,"_ informed Haxon. As I pulled the butt of the assault rifle tight against the ball of my shoulder, I cast an off glace over at the machine that was still creating my special weapon. The glowing green digits on the screen read off, _'9:12.'_

As each of us readied ourselves, a sly smile came across Irwin's lips as he glanced over to me and Bruce.  
"Hey mates...I've got 50,000 credits that says I can get the most kills out of us," said Irwin as he activated the firing mechanism on his minigun, heaving the weapon with both hands so that it pointed directly at the ceiling. The six barrels let out a small whining noise as they sped up their rotations, until soon they were nothing than a spinning blur.

Despite the situation, Bruce let out a small chuckle as he let his left hand drop from his assault rifle. While keeping his eyes on the ceiling, the Turian's hand snaked underneath what was left of the acid eaten counter in front of us and removed a small container. Along the side of it was a black and white symbol of a flaming explosion.  
"You're on, old man," Bruce said with a Turian smile, as he took off the lid and removed a handfull of small metal disks with glowing red lights along the sides.

_"I adivise caution Bruce, at these close quarters the odds are likely that Inferno grenades will kill both you and these hostiles at the same time,"_ said Haxon once the A.I. had scanned what the Turian was holding. As Bruce passed a grenade to both me and Irwin, I pressed my eye close to the scope on my assault rifle, zooming in the lens until I had a close up view of the acid burnt hole in the ceiling.

Suddenly two clawed hands snapped out of the darkness, each one digging its six fingers into the brown stone of the ceiling as another Xenomorph heaved its black, slime covered body out into the pale illumination of the emergency lighting. Immediately its head lowered down in my direction, as if the creature was focusing in on me.

"Sometimes to survive, Haxon, you need to challenge those kinds of odds," I said to the A.I. under my breath, as I silently clicked off the safety button next to my thumb. The new Alien bared its sharp, slime laced teeth and let out an earsplitting hiss of anger, nearly exact to the way its predecessor had before. Small chippings fell from the ceiling as its claws tightened with rage, causing the stone it was clinging onto to crack

With my scope still zoomed in on it, I pulled the trigger with a simple twitch of my finger, and sunk a glowing thermal round straight into the Xenomorph's mouth!  
The creature's head jerked back sharply for a moment before its body went slack, slumping forward lazily as its claws let go of the ceiling before plummeting out of the opening down to the floor. The body smashed down in front of us with a sickening crunch.

"I got to admit...I'm a bit disappointed, I was expecting something more impressive," grumbled Irwin as he looked over the counter to see the body laying in a heap along the ring steps only a few feet away. As we looked back up to the hole in the ceiling, we noticed the uncomfortable absence of the scuttling and hissing noises the Xenos had been making just seconds before.

I pointed my rifle straight upwards, keeping it close to my shoulder and my hands gripping it firmly. Keeping my head on a swivel as we called it in the Army, I rotated slowly in a full 360 degree turn, my eyes scanning the ruined carvings of the gods for any other places the Xeno's might have burned through.

_'Something's not right, they wouldn't just give up like that...'_

I opened my mouth to ask Haxon a question, when without warning a loud cracking sound rang out from above us. The sounds of louder cracking and the breaking of stone echoed throughout the room as large pieces of the ceiling began to crumble and fall, smashing into display cases or shattering onto the carpeted floor. All three of us ducked low behind the counters, covering our heads to avoid getting hit by any stray stones or glass fragments.

After a few seconds of crashing, the chaos finally died down, with only a few random stone pieces falling nearby. All three of us slowly stood up, looking towards the roof with our weapons raised. With what light we had from the emergency systems, we could easily see what had been the cause of the ceiling breaking apart.

Several large broken holes were dotted around the domed ceiling. All of them housed at least one hissing, spitting Xenomorph that had bashed their way through the stone with their bare claws. Both Bruce and I turned from left to right, sighting each creature in our scopes as we backed a step away from the counters.  
"Haxon...how many do your scans count out?" I whispered as the Xenos began to slowly crawl out of their holes, keeping their full attention on us as they diliberately inched out onto the ceiling, almost as if they were savoring the moment.

_"In total, I am detecting no more than twenty hostile contacts,"_ responded the A.I..  
"So boss, what was that about wanting something more impressive?" asked Bruce perturbedly over to his employer, as all three of us activated the highest settings on our weapons. Irwin rumbled out a deep chuckle as he pointed his minigun up at the approaching Aliens with a strange look shining in his eyes, and a small smile on his face.

"Mate...this just makes it more _fun_."

* * *

Alec snapped his head up the moment the creature had snarled at him. The Alien that was above him had its claws dug into the smooth metal of the alleyway wall, hanging off of it almost exactly like Spiderman would.

In the instant Alec had looked up at it, the Xenomorph lunged down at him, hissing viciously as it opened its mouth and extended its inner set of snapping jaws. The creature had been intending to tear its jaws down through Alec's forehead, killing him instantly. But instead to its surprise, the Guardian snapped his hand up and clamped his fingers around the small snapping jaws in a steel grip!

_"Gottcha!"_ Alec yelled victoriously as he held tightly onto the slime covered jaws sticking out of the Alien's mouth.

The Xenomorph screamed in rage as it tugged hard from side to side, trying to rip itself free. With a surge of its long legs, the Xeno sprang from the wall down towards Alec! With its long claws spread out ahead of it, it shredded into Alec's shoulder's before it had even fully pounced on him.

"ARGG!" shouted Alec in anger, the sharp claws cutting deep through his muscles. The alleyway's orange lighting became mixed with the bright white of Alec's powers as his body began automatically healing his wounds. In the millisecond he had before the Alien would force him to the ground, the Guardian extended the talons on his free hand and drove them deep into the creature's abdomen!

The Xenomorph screamed as it was stunned my pain, its acid blood trickling down Alec's hand and arm. With his right hand still clenched around the Xeno's inner jaws and his left embbeded in its gut, Alec used the momentum of the Xeno's pounce to lift the creature over his head and hurl it into the opposite wall.

The creature smashed into the wall with a crunch, crumbling to the floor with a hissing cry. Alec cringed, baring his teeth as his smoking left hand began to glow bright white, his powers dispelling the acid blood, repairing both his armour and the rest of his arm.  
"You ready for some more!..." began Alec with a vicious smile as his arm fully healed. But as soon as he had said it, the Xenomorph jumped up into a low crouch, ignoring the bleeding stab wound in its stomach. The creature bared its teeth with a hiss as its long sharp tail curved protectively around it like a snake, ready to strike at a moments notice.

Alec bared his teeth again and made a hiss of his own that imitated the Xeno's; he was _mocking_ the creature! The Alien cringed in anger at the insult, showing off its gleaming fangs even more as it snarled at the Guardian.

"Come on, bring over your ugly face and give me a kiss, _Bucktooth!"_ provoked Alec with a _Matrix_ like beckoning gesture, readying himself in an ancient Mesopotamian fighting stance he had learned centuries ago. Thats when the Xenomorph snapped. With its tail already flickering around its body at the ready, it sprang towards Alec with the speed of an attacking viper, sending the sharp tip of the tail spearing towards the Guardian's chest. However, Alec proved to be the quicker, clamping both hands around the plated appendage in a flash, stopping it just inches away from his heart.

"Now would be a great time to jump in, if you're not busy and all!" he shouted over to the entrance of the alley through gritted teeth, straining his muscles as he tried to keep the now thrashing Alien from driving its point home any further. (All pun intended)

Suddenly there was a snap hiss, along with a deep humming sound that seemed to vibrate throughout the entire alley way.

Off to the side, Yoda had been tensely waiting for a chance to assist Alec. As soon as the Guardian had given the word, the Master let out a deafening roar as he charged towards the struggling pair, his brilliant green lightsaber ignited and spinning in his hand. The little green alien used the Force to propel himself forward into the air, rebounding off the side of the nearby trash compactor with his frog like feet so that he came flying within an inch of Alec and the Alien's tail.

As the Jedi sailed through the air in-between Alec and the Xenomorph, he made a quick and precise upward sweep with the lightsaber. The tip of the blade sliced clean through the tail, making a quick sizzling sound as it cut through flesh and bone.

The Xeno screamed in pain while Yoda landed in a roll farther down the alleyway, the nails on his feet carving into the metal as he rolled back up into a standing position facing back towards his comrade and his enemy, screeching to a stop. Meanwhile, Alec grabbed near the end of the smoking severed tail with one hand and flipped it around so that he held it like a spear, thrusting the sharp end out at the Alien.

"HAHA! Who's got the tail _now_?" Instead, the Xenomorph roared at Alec as it made a swipe with its claws, knocking the piece of tail out of his grasp!

He blinked as he looked at his now empty hands, stunned that he had lost his weapon so quickly.  
"Right..." he said after a brief pause as he extended the talons on both hands, quickly readying himself in another fighting stance. The Xenomorph snarled as it looked between Alec and Yoda, the Jedi Master holding his lightsaber by his side with both hands in his classic _Ataru_ lightsaber style.

"It's your move bright eyes," (Which is weird since they don't actually have eyes) said Alec, holding his right hand near his face while his left jutted out towards the Alien, both keeping its talons aimed at the creature. The Xenomorph looked between the two of them again, still snarling, but unsure of whom to attack first. Wisps of smoke had begun rising around the Alien as the acid blood from the stump of its tail and the stab wound in its abdomen began to trickle down to the floor, burning into the metal surrounding it.

But then something happened.

As the three of them continued to stare each other down, Alec noticed three red dots arranged in a triangle suddenly appear on the left side of the Xenomorph's head, glowing brightly amidst the orange lights of the alleyway. While keeping his hands still at the ready, the Guardian stole a glance towards the entrance to the Corridor.  
Somehow (and miraculously, considering the amount of racket being made during the fight) the crowd of frightened citizens had been too busy shouting amongst themselves to hear or notice the standoff that was going on behind them.

Scanning what he could see of the Corridor, Alec was soon able to make out three red laser beams being projected from the dimmly lit catwalk going across the ceiling. Each beam matched perfectly with the triangle of glowing dots still targeting the Xeno's skull. Alec frowned deeply as he looked back at the Alien.  
_'I know I've seen those from somewhere...'_ thought the Guardian as he began sifting through Axel's memories, trying to figure out what those red dots could mean.

As he did so, Yoda took his own glance up towards the catwalk, curious to find out what was projecting the beams. While keeping most of his attention on the Xenomorph, the Jedi stretched out his senses, feeling the thoughts and emotions of every lifeform that stood in front of the alleyway entrance. Just like before, Yoda strained against the waves of fear being generated by the mob of civilians, and the confused minds of the C-Sec agents who were trying to restore order. But then suddenly he felt another mind, a very cold and calculated mind.

Yoda's eyes widened as he recognised what he was feeling; it was the mind of the unusual creature he had sensed earlier.  
As he tried to look deeper into its thoughts, the Master could feel the intentions of this _'hunter'_; it had now found its prey, and was ready to blow it away at any second!

As Yoda took in this revelation, his keen eyes looked up towards the catwalk where the three red lasers were being projected from. Squinting slightly, the Jedi could make out a slight distortion in the air surrounding the beams, as if there was something standing on the catwalk, but invisible to the naked eye.  
The multicoloured lights that shone throughout the Corridor seemed to bend around this distortion, allowing normal vision to see through to whatever was behind it, but also creating a slight haze along its outline.  
From what Yoda could make of the distortion, it was large in width, but nearly eight feet tall in height!

The Jedi's grip on his saber hilt tightened, he could sense the mind of the Hunter coming directly from this distortion.  
"Large enough to hide a creature of great size..." Yoda muttered.

"I'm sorry? I didn't catch that..." Alec asked politley as he turned to the Jedi, dropping his guard and taking his attention completely away from the Alien.

_'KILL...NOW!'_ The Xenomorph's murderous thoughts screamed in Yoda's ears, causing the Jedi to grab his forehead in pain.  
"Oh, crap," said Alec as his head snapped back towards the creature. But it was too late.

The Xenomorph sprang forth, hissing and spitting as it launched itself into the air, the sharp claws on both hands baring down onto the Guardian!

Time seemed to slow down as Alec tried to bring up his talons to protect himself, inwardly knowing that the Alien would strike him before he could do anything. But then, just before the creature could touch him, the three red dots that were still tracking the creature pulsed brightly for a moment. Suddenly a loud electrical discharge rang out, filling most of the Corridor and alleyway with a bright white-blue light.

In less than a second, a violent blast of glowing energy shot down from the catwalk, and tore into the side of the Xenomorph's head!

Alec shielded his face as a massive portion of the Alien's skull exploded upon impact, while the force of the blast knocked the smoking body several feet down the alleyway, a large smear of acid blood trailing behind it as it went. Immediately Yoda used the Force to front flip over the headless body as it came hurdling towards him, landing in a crouch next to a cringing Alec as the Guardian's powers began healing the few stray drops of acid that had landed on him.

The mob of citizens all screamed as one, re-igniting the insane panic that Axel had stirred up a short while ago. Both Alec and Yoda pressed themselves against the large trash compactor the Xenomorph had been hiding behind, inching their heads around the corner to see what was happening. The citizens were evacuating the Corridor in a massive rush, this time the C-Sec agents only directed them towards the nearest exits rather than fight through them as the Turian's had tried back during the park riot.

"Did you see the shooter?" shouted Alec to Yoda to be heared over the screams ringing throughout the alleyway. Yoda de-activated his lightsaber and pointed up towards the catwalk.  
"Concealed in a shroud of invisibility, dangerous and powerful it is!" shouted the Master. Shifting his gaze up towards the catwalk, Alec froze with his eyes wide as he spotted where the blast of energy had been fired from.

Standing on the grated walkway, looking straight back at Alec, was the flickering image of a massive seven foot tall _Predator_!

Blue electrical sparks flew off its body at random intervals, the power drain from firing its Plasma Caster having caused its active camouflage to fluctuate. Sections of the Yautja's body disappeared and then re-appeared several times, showing off the creature's large muscular frame, coupled with its brown reptilian like scales and scarred armour plates. Long black dreadlocks hung from its head down to its shoulders, while on its face it wore the iconic Predator face mask. Alec could see strange symbols carved around the mask's edges and cheek ridges, along with several shallow scratch marks going across one of the mask's black eyes. On its right shoulder was the large smoking Caster it had just used to kill the Xenomorph, which at the moment was retracting back into its casing attached to the Predator's back. Sticking out over the top of its left shoulder was the tip of an un-extended Predator Combi Stick.

_"You...are one ugly, motherfucker..."_ whispered Alec in both dread and amazement, not knowing that he was also speaking in a classic Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

Taking his eyes off the creature for a moment, Alec looked over towards the entrance to see if Jango had moved at all during the time he and Yoda had left him. As like every other time before, Jango was still leaning against the alley wall, sleeping soundly as if he didn't have a care in the world.  
"You really did a number on that guy..." Alec remarked down to Yoda with a cocked eyebrow.

But Yoda didn't respond, his gaze was still fixed on the alien standing above them. Turning his eyes back towards the catwalk, Alec caught the last glimpse of the Yautja keying in a command onto the brown armoured gauntlet wrapped around its left arm. The sparks across its body ceased as the Predator's cloaking system powered back up.  
After tapping another button, the creature vanished from sight, the lifeless black eyes of its face mask flashing a deep orange before fading away. A small clicking sound could be heard echoing off the metal as the Predator disappeared.

_'Why didn't he attack us?'_ thought the Guardian, confused, as he surveyed the catwalk for any signs of where the creature had gone to.

"First we've got most of C-Sec chasing us down, then Xenomorphs jump in, and now _Predators_ too?" Alec said to no one in particular with a shake of his head, as both he and Yoda stepped out from behind the compactor, their eyes scanning what they could see through the alley's entrance.

The two of them stood there for a short while, as if watching a beautiful sunset, while in front of them the mob of shouting citizens were still being hastily directed towards the nearest exits. During this, mixed teams of C-Sec agents began to patrol the now empty areas of the Corridor for any sign of what had caused the strange blast.

Alec let out a chuckle as he put his hands on his hips, finding the confused reactions of the mob to be somewhat amusing.  
"You know Yoda, from what I've had to deal with in the last hour of travelling with Axel, I really don't think it can get any worse after this," the Guardian stated as he pointed towards the dwindling chaos in front of them.

Suddenly several loud explosions vibrated throughout the walls of the entire Corridor, causing the already jittery crowd of people to scream and panic...yet again.  
The sounds of running feet and the frantic crashing of bodies began echoing off the walls for a second time, as the video reels of both Axel and Alec that were still being displayed around the Corridor flashed into glowing waves of static before shutting down. The multicoloured lights that had been illuminating each of the stores in vibrant patterns immediately winked out of existance, plunging the traumatised crowd into total darkness.

As the screams of the civilians reached new heights, and the angered shouting of the C-Sec agents caught in the massive wave of thrashing bodies joined them, Alec and Yoda stood frozen in stunned silence.  
The Guardian blinked hard, his hands still on his hips as his amused look dropped. The orange lights from the alleyway ceiling had also gone out, leaving them standing in the dark as well.

"Perfect timing, you always seem to have Alec..." Yoda said sarcastically with a small sigh, looking up at him with a cocked eyebrow.  
"Ah shut up frog-man, lets just get Axel and be off this station before Godzilla shows up," Alec grumbled as he quickly crossed over and slung Jango's body over his shoulder.

* * *

"Lieutenants? Lieutenant Chellick do you copy? Lieutenant Bailey? Is _anyone_ reading me!" shouted the Turian squad leader into his head set. The only response he was getting now was garbled static. Out in front of him, the other four members of his squad had activated the flashlights on the ends of their assault rifles, casting the beams across the ceiling and deeper into the Corridor.  
The noise from the terrified crowd was still loud enough to be an annoyance, but thankfully it was steadily dying down as the civilians continued to pour through the exits out of harm's way.

"Sir!" called over a Salarian tech expert to the squad leader. As he came over to the Turians, he was quickly tapping several codes into his activated omni-tool, illuminating both himself and most of the area around him in a deep orange light.

"Whatever did this destroyed all of the main grids, but I think I can get the emergency lights working if I re-route power from several of the other Corridors," said the Salarian as he showed his glowing screen to the squad leader. With a nod from the Turian, the tech expert started tapping away again. In quick succession, large white lights hanging over-head began flashing into existance. Each sent down a harsh but limited cone of light, illuminating a small circular section of the metal floor.

"I want a full perimeter stretch from exits 3 to..." the squad leader began ordering to every C-Sec agent in the Corridor, but he stopped when suddenly the final light flashed on. Every agent within a hundred feet of this light in particular turned their head.

Frozen in a hunched pose that suggested they had been trying to use the darkness to sneak past the majority of the agents undetected, stood the tense and cringing forms of the terrorist Alec, and the small unidentified alien that had been seen accompanying him and Axel. The seemingly dead body of the large armoured man still hung slumped over Alec's left shoulder.

"Well, well...this is a nice surprise for once," the squad leader said with a chuckle. A small handful of agents surrounded the trio with pistols and assault rifles raised, while the rest that remained farther back whispering to each other as they eyed Yoda, having never seen an alien like him.

The Turian squad leader made his way through the ring of agents, retracting his assault rifle into its compact form before sliding it onto the clips on his back. As he stepped into the circle of light to stand in front of Alec, the Turian reached up and grasped both sides of his helmet, slowly lifting it off his head to reveal his face.

He had light blue eyes, gray skin, and blue tribal markings on his face. At the moment he was wearing the Turian equivalent of a smirk.

* * *

_"Garrus?"_ said Alec in shock, his eyes wide as Axel's memories of Shepard's loyal friend came to him. The likeness between Garrus and this Turian was almost uncanny, except for the fact that this one lacked the blue holographic interface that Garrus would always wear across his left eye.

The squad leader's own eyes widened, as his brow ridges deepened into a severe frown of suspicion.  
"How do you know that name?" the Turian demanded, his smirk having disappeared.  
"Well that _is_ your name isn't it?" the Guardian shot back, only now beginning to notice other small differences about this Turian besides the absence of Garrus's interface. The squad leader was larger in the torso than Garrus, and was about a few inches taller. He also had a deeper, older sounding voice then Garrus too.

"Officer Garrus Vakarian is my cousin sir, my name is Verrak Vakarian," the squad leader said as he took a step closer towards Alec. "...Sgt. Verrak Vakarian."

A look of dramatic understanding came upon Alec's features. _"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!_ Okay! Now I get it, that helps clear things up!" Alec bellowed with a laugh, flashing the surrounding ring of gun pointing agents with an award winning smile.

Meanwhile, as Alec and Sgt. Vakarian continued talking, Yoda was glancing up into the darkness of the ceiling, his hand resting on his lightsaber hilt. His senses were one with the Force, allowing him to feel the edginess but also curiousity coming from many of the C-Sec agents encircling them, as each of them put most of their attention on him. However, he could also feel the anger and vengeful desire coming from the minds of the dozens of Xenomorphs hidden within the darkness of the Corridor.

They had been the ones responsible for sabotaging the power grids, leading to the massive blackout. Now they were slowly closing in around them, un-noticed and unseen by the many agents spread throughout the Corridor, intending to kill everyone for the death of their sibling that had been slain in the alleyway.

"I only see two of you, even though we were sent to arrest three. Where is Axel, the man who's been leading you?" Verrak Vakarian asked as he tossed his helmet over to one of his Turian squadmen. Alec shifted Jango's deadweight slightly to be more comfortable.

"To tell you the honest truth sargeant...he's gone shopping," said Alec nonchalantly with a shrug.

Verrak gave a small scoff as he looked over at the limp body of Jango Fett, and then intently gazed down at Yoda.  
"I'm going to have to ask you to place that man on the ground, along with your weapons..." ordered Verrak, gesturing towards Jango's body as he looked back at the Guardian, along with the two blaster pistols tucked underneath Alec's belt. The squad leader then jabbed a finger down towards the Jedi Master.  
"And tell this person, whatever it is, that it must surrender itself and any technology its carrying before the Council for examination."

Instead of protesting as one might think they would, neither Alec or Yoda responded. Both of them were looking at each other with hardened expressions. Barely a second after Verrak had finished his request, a small drop of translucent slime had fallen in between the Turian and Alec, shimmering briefly in the bright light shining overhead.

Suddenly a monsterous hiss screamed out from above the group. The squad leader only had enough time to lift his head up towards the blinding emergency light. The feral silhouette of an enraged Xenomorph plummeted down from the ceiling towards Verrak like a giant bird of prey, its claws outstretched and its sharp jaws wide open!

"LOOK OUT!" shouted Alec as he quickly delivered a sharp kick to the Turian's armoured chest with the heel of his jackboot, sending him flying backwards into several of his agents. The Xeno smashed down onto where Sgt. Vakarian had been standing a second before, spread on all fours like an angered tiger. The force of its impact caused the metal flooring to crack and fragment in several places. The Alien snarled at the broken ring of startled agents, all of them backing up with their weapons semi-pointed in its direction. The creature stood up from the shallow crater it had created, standing tall on its legs with its knees slightly bent, remaining ready to strike.

As the agents continued to back away, it brought its arms up with its claws ready, its gleaming fangs bared in a look of rage, and its spiked tail flickering around its body like a bull-whip. Its entire body shined brightly as the layer of translucent slime covering its black skin reflected the blaze of light coming from above it.

"Yoda get your lightsaber!" Alec whispered sharply as he extended the talons on his right hand, his left arm tightening to keep Jango firmly over his shoulder. The Guardian had hoped to catch the creature off guard, but even with its back turned to the duo, the Xenomorph had been using its attuned hearing to listen to what was happening behind it.  
In the blink of an eye, it spun around a full 180 degress with its right arm outstretched, intending to decapitate Alec with a single swipe of its spiked forearm! However, amazingly Alec managed to duck down low, barely avoiding the sharp tips of the spikes as they passed over top of him. (I swear, that guy had luck coming up in spades!)

"HA! Missed us!" shouted the Guardian as he sprung back up.

But immediately after, the Xeno used its remaining momentum to swipe its long plated tail into more than half of the ring of agents! The violent force of the impact sent several C-Sec, including Yoda, flying backwards farther down the Corridor, most of them crashing into other agents that had begun running towards the deadly creature. Grunts or cries of pain could be heard as the men and women were flung into the air.

Meanwhile, Alec and two Salarian agents were struck by the blow as well. All three of them, including Jango, were subequently sent flying backwards into an evacuated souvenir shop! The four men smashed through the large windows going along the store's exterior, crashing into display shelves and knocking over furniture as they slid to a jarring stop amidst the wreckage.

Alec groaned as he tried to pick his aching body out of a pile of destroyed ornaments and shattered window fragments, while pushing aside splintered pieces of shelving and chairs. During their brief flight through the air, Jango had been thrown from his shoulder, coming to a landing only a few feet off to Alec's right, along with the two Salarians.

The Xenomorph screamed at the surrounding platoon of C-Sec, which had begun to pick themselves up from the floor. It stood its ground firmly on its hind legs, making itself look taller and more terrifying as it hissed and bared its fangs, its deadly tail flicking from side to side at its back. Yoda brushed himself off as he stood up from the floor, conveniently standing ahead of the large group of agents.

By now the C-Sec officers no longer cared who's side Yoda was on, each of them was now standing at his flank, pointing their pistols, assault rifles, or flaring their Biotics at the hostile Alien ahead of them. Yoda calmly reached for his lightsaber, igniting the humming green blade with a flick of his wrist as he held it in front of him. The glow from the blade blended in with the green pigment of the Jedi's skin, while also illuminating the darker area around him and the agents that the emergency lights were un-able to.

As the Master and the army of C-Sec behind him continued their standoff with the enraged Alien, Sgt. Vakarian and the other half of the agents standing behind the creature remained in a tense silence.  
"Orders sir?" an agent whispered sharply over to Verrak out of the corner of his mouth, keeping his eyes and his rifle aimed at the Xenomorph's back. The sargeant had to force himself into looking away from the strange creature standing before him.  
"The civilians have been evacuated from the Corridor..." he said as he scanned the rest of the area. After signalling the other agents standing in front of the Xeno, Verrak addressed every man and woman linked to his radio.

"All units, _PERMISSION TO OPEN FIRE!"_

At the moment he had said it, the Xenomorph spun around to face the Turian, its sharp fangs showing even more as it hissed, clearly having understood Vakarian's order. Every agent with a clear line of fire began squeezing their triggers, firing off multiple thermal rounds at the creature. But the Alien had been expecting this.

Before the blasts could reach it, the creature ducked down low to the floor, instantly spreading itself out on all fours again, the glowing blue shots crisscrossing over the spiked ridges of its back. Many of the surrounding agents were struck by the stray blasts coming from either side of the Corridor, luckily their personal shields obsorbing the force of the impacts, but also causing the shooters on both sides to stagger backwards and cease firing momentarily. These precious few seconds of confusion were all the Xenomorph needed to strike!

Immediately the Xeno sprang forward, rapidly bounding across the few feet between it and Verrak Vakarian! Several of the agents next to Vakarian jumped in front of him to stop the creature in its tracks, but the Alien simply used its own strength and momentum to shove each of them to the ground.

As the last agent between them was thrown to the floor, the Xenomorph launched itself into the air, its clawed hands stretched out in front of it, ready to tear the Turian in half!  
Verrak quickly reached behind his back and withdrew a serrated combat knife from his belt. The Xenomorph was then upon him, its clawed nails stabbing into Vakarian's armoured shoulders as the rest of its body slammed into him. The squad leader grunted as he allowed his body to fold with the force of the hit, deciding to use the Xeno's own weight and momentum against it rather than fight it.

The two of them latched onto eachother, the force of the hit briefly throwing them down the Corridor. Vakarian could feel his back slam into several of the agents that had been standing behind him.

Both of them landed harshly on the polished flooring, Verrak's armour causing brief sparks as the remaining momentum from the Alien allowed him to throw the creature to the side.  
However, the Xenomorph would not let go of its prey so easily, using the force behind the Turian's throw to drag him along with it. Across the floor the two rolled over each other several times, both trying to pin the other to the ground to gain the upper hand.

Finally the Xenomorph stopped rolling, coming to a halt laying on its spiked backside as Verrak rolled ontop of it. Panting hard the Turian straddled its chest, the blade of his combat knife could be seen deeply embbeded up to its hilt in the creature's chin, travelling through its mouth and into its brain. The moment the Xenomorph had slammed into him, Verrak had been able to thrust the blade up into its head.

The Alien's claws that were still stuck into Vakarian's shoulder guards fell away, the creature's arms and body going limp as it died. Behind him, the squad leader could hear his men picking themselves up from the floor, some of them helping others that had been knocked down by the Xenomorph's rough persuit.  
'You were a tough son of a bitch...' Verrak thought as his rapidly beating heart began to calm.

Suddenly the Xeno's body tensed with a hiss of anger, its claws snapping up from the floor as it clamped its long fingers around Verrak's neck!  
"Sargeant!" a C-Sec agent shouted from farther behind him, accompanied by rapid boot falls as several agents rushed to the squad leader's aid.

Even with a blade in its head, the Xenomorph still had a staggering strength to its grasp. Vakarian bared his teeth against the mind numbing pain he was experiencing, straining his muscles to keep from going unconscious.  
With an angered grunt, Verrak drove the knife even further into the creature's skull. The Alien's body gave a shuddering spasm from the damage the blade was causing, but it still managed to maintain its vice grip around the squad leader's windpipe. Verrak's world began to go dark as his vision started to fade away, the pressure from the creature's claws continuing to starve his brain of oxygen.

With the last bit of strength he could muster, the Turian angrily cried out as he sharply twisted the blade, before driving it as deep as he could through the beast's head! The Xenomorph gave a small croak of pain before going silent, its fingers going slack as its arms fell away. The moment the Xeno's claws left his throat, Vakarian began to cough uncontrollably, his body desperate to get air back into his lungs.

"Sir! Are you alright?" asked an Asari agent as she and several others surrounded him. Verrak nodded weakly as he massaged his neck, un-able to speak at the moment. As he did so, he gave a sharp tug on the hilt of his knife, wrenching it out from the Xeno's skull. The agents all recoiled away from the hissing blade as wisps of smoke began to roll off from the disintigrating material.  
"Its blood is acid!" Verrak's voice growled from his sore throat as he threw the bloodied weapon aside, before said acid could begin eating his hand.  
"What the hell is this thing?" asked one of the Turian agents present as he nudged the Alien's long curved head with the barrel of his assault rifle. To everyone's relief the creature didn't move.

But that relief was to be short lived.

"Get a medic here to scan this thing," ordered Vakarian to the agents as he stood up from the body, a hand still rubbing his neck as he used the other to reach back and draw his compact assault rifle. Suddenly a familiar screech rang out from the darkness of the ceiling. Except this time it was in numerous tones, and coming from all around them!

"Sargeant Vakarian! They are descending as one!" shouted Yoda from the other side of the Corridor, his lightsaber still active. Every agent raised their weapons toward the ceilings, their flashlights active as they scanned the catwalks and beams that ran overhead.  
The Xenomorphs continued to hiss from the darkness, keeping themselves concealed as they moved through the shadows. Their constant noises were causing most of the less experienced agents to jerk their weapons from side to side, searching in vain for the creatures that were coming closer and closer with each passing moment!

As the army of C-Sec began to spread out, Yoda stayed firmly rooted in place, listening and feeling with the Force to detect where each of the creatures were.

Off to the side, a younger Human agent scanned the area around him with the beam of his flashlight, sweeping his assault rifle from side to side with shaking hands. His heart hammered in his ears, nearly overpowering the horrendous hissing that was only getting louder and louder by the second. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he took a few steps closer to the destroyed souvenir shop that Alec and the two Salarian agents had been thrown into, not knowing that he was standing underneath the second catwalk that stretched the length of the Corridor.

Suddenly he felt a blast of cold air blow down onto his head, causing him to freeze in place. His eyes widened as his rapid heartbeat kicked into overdrive, causing him to begin hyperventilating through his mouth.

Yoda's eyes widened as well, his senses zeroing in on one of the creatures nearby.  
"You there! _MOVE!"_ the Jedi shouted over to the man with his free hand outstretched towards him.

Several drops of slime fell past his face as the young Human shot his head up.  
The Xenomorph that had been latched underneath the catwalk sprang down on him with a roar, its fangs gleaming in the glow of his flashlight. He barely had enough time to twitch rather than move. The man screamed as the Xeno drove him to the ground, it claws tearing through his armour and into his chest like tin-foil!

As the screaming man tried to throw the creature off of him, it quickly brought its head down and sunk its fangs deep into his throat, severing his spinal column and breaking his neck in one savage twist!

As the Alien perched itself on the dead man's chest, it shot its head over in Yoda's direction, as if locking eyes with him. But before anyone in the Corridor could take a shot at it, another scream came from farther behind them!

"Contacts! Contacts everywhere!" an agent shouted, right before another Xeno dropped down from the ceiling ontop of him! Immediately screams and roaring filled the Corridor as all of the creatures revealed themselves, attacking the agents openly! Gunshots from Kesslers and assualt rifles began mixing in with the carnage, some of them hitting the Aliens while others impacted uselessly on the walls, the creatures beginning to zigzag from victim to victim.

Rapid flashes of blue began to light up the Corridor, casting frightening shadows across the walls of agents battling with the Xenos. The entire Corridor had now become a battle-ground for survival!

Amidst the chaos, a Xenomorph stood within a circle of light being cast by one the emergency lights, its right hand clamped around the thin neck of a Salarian as its bretheren battled the rest of the agents surrounding it. The strength and height of the Xeno allowed it to lift the man nearly two feet off the ground! As the Salarian kicked and struggled to free himself, the Xeno slowly and sadistically brought his face closer to its own, opening its slime dipping mouth to reveal its inner set of jaws, which were ready to snap out and bury themselves into the man's forehead!

"Light it up!" came a sharp Turian voice.  
Suddenly the buzz of assault rifles sang out over the carnage, the thermal rounds slicing into the Xenomorph's backside and legs. The Alien jerked sharply several times with a snarl of pain, releasing the Salarian from its grap as both he and it fell to the floor. As the now coughing agent looked up, he could see Sgt. Vakarian and two of his original Turian squad members running up towards them through the battle.

"Are you alright?" Vakarian shouted to the Salarian over the shouting and gunfire, as one of his helmeted squad mates stomped his armoured boot onto the injured Xeno's head, quickly finishing it off with a blast from his Katana shotgun.

But before the Salarian could answer, he saw another Xenomorph drop down behind the Turians! Before either of Vakarian's squad men could do anything, the creature grabbed them by the large oval necklines of their armour.  
Lifting them up into the air, it easily smashed both of their heads together, causing a metallic crunch to sound out as their helmets collided. Verrak spun around with his rifle by his waist, intending to empty his entire heat sink into the Xeno's chest.

But in the blink of an eye, the Alien lifted its leg and delivered a sharp kick to the Turian's abdomen! Knocking back the Salarian in the process, Verrak was sent flying several feet down the Corridor, coming to a screeching halt on the polished floor.  
As he lay cringing from the pain, he noticed that his rifle had been thrown from his hands, laying on the floor several feet away from him.

Quickly lifting his head, Vakarian could see the Xenomorph standing ahead of him, still holding his unconscious squad mates in each claw. With a flex of its arms, it threw each Turian into either side of the Corridor, both of them landing amidst the thrashing maw of agents and Xenos that continued to battle each other around them.

The Alien before him began to quiver its lips, baring its fangs as it slowly crouched down on all fours, never taking its un-seeing gaze off of him. Quickly Verrak reached for his belt, grabbing his personal Karpov pistol. The Alien roared as it sprang forward, bounding across the few feet in between them just like the other one had.

Verrak ripped the pistol from its clip, activating it just as the Xenomorph launched itself into the air, one of its clawed hands drawn back high above its head as it bore down on him!

Just when Vakarian thought that he was as good as dead, the battle cry of an old man roared out off to his left. Suddenly a bright white-green blade flashed overhead, just as the Alien was about to land on him. The spinning blade sliced into the claw the Xenomorph was holding above itself, cutting it clean off at the wrist.  
The creature jerked to the side in mid air, screaming in pain at the smoking stump that used to be its right hand. This was the distraction Verrak needed.  
Just as the Xeno was about to land on him, the Turian grabbed it by the neck and drove his raised feet into its stomach, throwing it back into the air to land somewhere behind him.

Flipping himself onto his front, Verrak grunted as he pulled himself up onto one knee, pointing his pistol at the creature ahead of him. Yoda seemed to fall from the sky as the Jedi landed in a crouch next to the Sargeant, his lightsaber spinning into his hand as he used the Force to call it back to him.

The Xenomorph had landed several yards ahead of them, and was already back up onto one of its own knees snarling in their direction. The smoking stump on its right arm was bleeding acid blood onto the floor, causing a small hole to form next to it. Verrak activated the Incindiary setting on the side of his Karpov, but Yoda held up his free hand to him.

"No, handle this _I_ will," he said grimly, never taking his yellow eyes off the creature in front of him. Roaring again, the Xeno charged at the two, this time attempting a swipe with its left hand. Yoda made a roar of his own as he lauched himself into the air, whirling his saber in graceful archs.

But this time the Alien was faster! Its claws swiped towards the flying Jedi as they passed each other, intent on disembowling him. But in a quick diagonal strike, Yoda sliced his blade through the creature's left elbow, cutting off its entire forearm!  
However, the Master had only just been able to dodge its spearing nails, which were able to tear six long claw marks through the trailing side folds of his robes.

Verrak dived to the side as the screaming Alien landed in a roll close to him, coming back up onto its feet with its tail flicking around it angrily. Immediately the creature charged again, just as Yoda made a roll landing of his own.  
In a snap desicion, Verrak pointed his Karpov and fired off a single round that tore through the Xenomorph's left knee. The Alien staggered from the impact of the injury as it charged towards Yoda, who still had his back turned.

It screamed as it speared its tail forth, intent on impaling the Jedi through the back. But with a flash of Force attuned reflexes, the Master spun around, ducking low to avoid the tail as the tip went past him, gripping the hilt of his weapon with both hands as he horizontally swiped his saber blade through the creature's right knee!

With the loss of its leg, and from the speed it had been going at, the Xeno tumbled forward, unable to stop itself. With the help of Yoda's small stature, he was able to duck even lower, allowing the creature to easily fly over him.

In a cry of pain, the Xenomorph somersaulted forward and came to a skidding stop on its back, unable to get up or stand due to the loss of its limbs. With a quick running front flip, Yoda landed hard on the creature's chest. Immediately the beast snapped out its inner set of jaws, aiming for Yoda's face. But the Master grabbed hold of it with his free hand, similar to how Alec had during their first encounter with these monsters back in the alleyway.  
Flipping his saber in his other hand so that the tip faced downward like a dagger, he quickly and efficiently drove his sword through the center of the Xenomorph's brain!

As the Master stood up victoriously from the creature's body, one of the other Xenos fighting nearby screeched in rage at the sight of its sibling's dismembered form. Using its arms and tail to either knock down or throw aside all nearby agents, the Alien howled as it charged forward, bounding towards the Jedi like a rabid wolf. But before it could get there, a familiar triangle of three red dots appeared across the Xeno's domed forehead!

As Yoda was expecting, an electrical discharge rang out from the catwalk above everyone, accompanied by a bright flash of white-blue light that seemed to briefly illuminate most of the darkened Corridor. The plasma blast struck the Alien almost head on, nearly splitting the creature in half. The chard, sizzling body flew backwards from the force of the hit, the massive hole in its body causing a smear of acid blood to follow it similar to how the first one had.

Both Yoda and Vakarian shot their heads up towards the catwalk, catching the brief orange flash of the Predator's masked eyes as it re-adjusted its cloaking system, turning invisible once again.

"Friend of yours?" Verrak asked over to Yoda. The Jedi cocked his head in confusion at the Yautja's odd behaviour. This was the second time it had killed an enemy on his or Alec's behalf.

"Yet to find that out myself, I have," answered Yoda to the squad leader, before both he and the Turian turned their attention back to the fight going on around them

* * *

"Oww..." Alec said painfully as he lifted himself up from the wreckage he was buried in, staggering as he held onto a broken set of shelves that he had smashed through. Off to the side he could see the two Salarian agents spawled out on the floor, also covered in debris. Shaking his head to clear his mind, Alec looked out through the shattered windows they had been thrown into. At the sight of what was going on in the Corridor, his brain immediately snapped into focus.

"Where the hell did all these come from?" he said as he watched the battle between the agents and Xenomorphs continue to rage, the entire Corridor having been turned into a small scale war-zone in his absence! From behind him, he could hear movement and the rustle of debris being cast aside.  
"Ugh..." groaned a familiar New Zealand accented voice. Alec spun around with a look of delight on his face. Just a few yards away from the Guardian, using his right hand to brush off pieces of junk, lay the finally awakened Jango Fett!

As the bounty hunter brushed away more debris from his body, his large hand pressed against his left shoulder, the one that Axel had broken during their fight in the _SKYLIFT_ elevator.  
"ARGGH!" he shouted with rage as he felt the stinging tenderness of his broken collar bone.  
"Jango!" said Alec as he rushed towards him, crushing every piece of debris in his wake. The Guardian knelt down on one knee next to the Mandalorian, brushing off the remaining debris for him.  
"Thank the gods you're awake, that means I don't need to carry you anymore!" Alec said, leaning over Jango with a smile, clearly relieved at this new turn of events.

But in response to this, Alec promptly got a full portion of the Mandalorian's fist cracking across the left side of his face!

As the Guardian fell backwards, reeling from the force of the strike, Jango groaned again as he rubbed the side of his helmet.  
"Ugh...get away from me! I got a splitting headache as it is!" the bounty hunter growled, probably with his eyes wedged shut under his helmet as he tried to shake off the effects of whatever Yoda had done to him.  
"Well hello to you too..."Alec said as he rubbed his sore face while standing up from the floor. The Mandalorian used his good arm to grab hold of the cashier's desk that he had landed against, pulling himself to a stand as well.

Outside the fighting continued, the Xenos battling the C-Sec agents to a stalemate. A loud scream rang out as a Human woman was thrown through the air, appearing briefly through the store's shattered windows as she fired her assault rifle while flying past. An enraged Xenomorph soon appeared chasing after her, several bleeding bullet holes visible in its chest and shoulder before it disappeared from view.  
"I hope Yoda and Axel are holding their own through this..." Alec said under his breath as he viewed the carnage, trying to see if he could spot the saber wielding Jedi amidst the brawling mass of agents and Aliens.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd hand me back my weapons..." came Jango's voice from behind Alec, accompanied by a metallic click.

The Guardian let out a sign of disappointment as he mentally scolded himself for not being more wary of the hunter. Turning around slowly, he wasn't too surprised to see Jango pointing his good arm at him, a small blaster barrel having extended from the gauntlet around his forearm.

"_Seriously_ Jango? Are you not seeing what's going on out there?" Alec asked angrily as he pointed towards the battle going on behind him.  
"I don't know where you've brought me and I don't care, return my weapons and I might let you live," the Mandalorian said coldly, the arm of his gauntlet blaster un-wavering. Alec scoffed with a deep scowl.

"For one, that thing isn't gonna do anything to me..." he listed off.

Suddenly one of the Xenomorphs threw a Turian several feet across the Corridor, ending with him landing harshly next to the sovenir shop the two were standing in. The force of his landing caused his finger to clamp down on the trigger of his drawn Kessler. A stray shot from the agent's pistol fired through the shattered windows, blowing a hole through the cashier desk nearest to Jango. The hunter barely flinched, but he did cock his head to the side to get his own view of the fight. Alec didn't even notice however, still talking as the fight went on.

"And two! With that arm..." Alec began as he indicated Jango's left arm that hung limp at his side.  
"Do you honestly think that you'll make it past those things alive?" Alec finished as he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the Aliens that continued to screech and slash against the agents behind him.

"And if you are able to make it past them, then you'll have to get past the 200,000 of _them_ that are hunting for us all over the station, _yourself_ included!" Alec shouted over the carnage, shifting himself so that he pointed at the numerous agents still fighting for their lives.

"What does it matter to you? Give me my weapons and we'll part ways here," said Jango as he turned his attention back to Alec.  
"There's a bigger danger out there than these things Jango! One that threatens to consume this entire galaxy. You've got skills that Axel could use to help prevent it. I'm offering you a way off this station if you agree to help us!" Alec shouted over an explosion going off behind him, as an agent pitched a frag grenade at one of the Xenomorphs. The creature screamed as the spinning disk stuck onto its chest, blasting its body into several steaming pieces a second later.

"Your only chance of staying a live and free man is by sticking with me!"

Suddenly a screaming Salarian was thrown through one of the shattered windows, flying past both Alec and Jango as he smashed into the remaining set of shelves still standing within the store. Following close behind him, a wounded and pissed off Xeno crashed through the shattered glass frame, landing low on the debris strew floor on all fours. The creature regarded the two men with naked contempt as it stood up to its full height, snearing at them as streams of slime drooled from its hissing mouth.

"Last chance Jango! Yes or no?" Alec said quickly to the bounty hunter as they both backed a step away from the Alien. Jango looked between the Guardian and the creature, turning his gauntlet blaster towards the Xeno, unsure of what to decide. After a tense second, the Mandalorian let out a quiet sigh.

"_Fine_...but only until we get off the station!" he said as he fired a bright red blast at the Xeno's chest. Alec immediately drew one of Jango's pistols from his belt and fired his own blast at the creature.

Its body jerked back as each blast tore into it, sending it staggering backwards through the shattered window back into the Corridor. The bounty hunter and the Guardian advanced forward, moving until they were standing side by side, firing a continuous barrage of red blasts at the Xenomorph, all of them either slicing through or exploding against its chest or other body parts. As Jango fired a final shot directly into its face, the smoking, blast riddled body fell limply onto its back, sinking into a small crater as its acid blood began seeping out of its massive wounds onto the floor.

Both men stepped cautiously through the shattered windows, keeping their weapons in front of them as they looked from side to side, surveying the combatants still fighting each other around the Corridor.

Debris, along with the bodies of both C-Sec agents and Aliens lay strew across the floor. Several small fires burned from destroyed components that had been torn or blasted away from the Corridor walls, mixing an orange glow with the blinding cones of light still coming from the emergency systems. The buzz of weapons fire rang out all around them as thermal rounds continued to glance off the walls, a few dozen surviving agents keeping up the fight against the handful of remaining Xenos that still battled them.

"Where is Axel now?"Jango asked Alec sharply over the battle sounds, his attention fixed on a scratched and burned Turian agent who was fighting furiously in hand-to-hand combat with one of the creatures. While his right hand threw punches or scratched at the beast with his talons, his left was using his broken assault rifle as a club, whacking the creature over its head or swiping across its face, causing it to screech and guard itself rather than strike back at the agent.

"He went to get better supplies before we planned on leaving the Citadel, but then this happened..." Alec said as he circled the barrel of Jango's pistol over his head to indicate the chaos still going on around them. Suddenly off to the side, the familiar voice of an old man roared out across the Corridor.

The battle ragged forms of a saber weilding Yoda and an assault rifle firing Verrak Vakarian stormed into view across from Jango and Alec, cutting down the Xenomorph the Turian agent was fighting against with a quick burst of thermal rounds, accompanied by a ruthless spinning throw of the Jedi's lightsaber that severed the creature's head from its shoulders.

"I see you've been having fun without me!" Alec called over to the Master with a smile.  
"About time it is that he awoke from his slumber!" Yoda called back, indicating his head over to Jango as he called his lightsaber back to his palm. Another scream sounded out as one of the remaining Xenos grabbed a female Human agent by the neck.

Lifting her high into the air, the creature hurled the agent towards Yoda and Vakarian as if it were pitching a baseball! The Jedi dodged to the side to avoid the flying woman before charging at the awaiting Alien, his lightsaber flashing in front of him as he did. Verrak, however, readied himself in the split second he had, barely catching the agent as she smashed into him. The force of the impact sent both of them crashing to the floor.

As Yoda battled with his new opponent, Alec quickly turned to Jango, flipping around the hunter's pistol so that he was holding onto the barrel.  
"Remember, if you're thinking of shooting my friends in the back, you can consider my offer null and void," Alec said coldly as he offered the handle of the pistol towards the bounty hunter. Jango took it firmly in his right hand with a stiff nod.  
"I'll keep my end of the bargain as long as you keep yours," Jango said flatly, before spinning around and blasting a charging Xeno straight through the center of its head, killing it instantly.

* * *

As Alec and Jango split up to help various agents, up above on the catwalk, the cloaked Predator continued to watch quietly. The zoom-in feature built into the vison of his face-mask flashed several times, each time giving him an enhanced view of the battle below. As he watched, the Great Serpents and the inhabitants of this new galaxy he had been brought to continued to fight each other to the death. The blasts coming from the local law enforcement's weapons were proving far more effective against these creatures than that of Human weaponry from the 21st Century, which the Yautja had previously fought against while stalking the jungles of Earth before he had been suddenly transported to this strange place.

The Predator had found it a truly alien, yet interesting world when he had first arrived. An enormous construct of metal and machine nearly 45 kilometres long. A station capable of maintaining a population numbering in the millions, one that contained a vast degree of varying cultures and races, all working together within a galactic community. Never in his centeries long lifespan had the Hunter ever seen such a thing, and what had made it even more intriguing was that he had seen Humans within this community as well!

The Yautja had only been on this station for a little under an hour, but in that time of exploring un-detected across the Citadel, as the beings of this place called it, he had discovered one Human in particular that had piqued his interest even further.

While perched high up within the lush green trees of a relaxing park on the Presidium, the Hunter had been in the right place to witness a large elevator cabin fall from the sky. The first time the Human, later known as Axel Sorenson, had caught the Predator's eye was when he had been able to stop the elevator in mid fall using some kind of supernatural power.

In the moments following, the Yautja had watched silently as Axel, along with his shapeshifting companion known as Alec, and the strange creature known as Yoda were able to outwit and outmatch the larger Citadel-Security force that had been sent to arrest them. Using both cunning and their mystical gifts, the three were able to incapacitate both their would-be captor's air and ground forces, and then covered their escape through use of the riot they had caused earlier.

The Predator emitted a low clicking sound, a sort of quiet chuckle in his native language as he remembered the events of only a half hour ago.

Their methods had been entertaining and also genius at the same time, something he would have done had the Hunter been put in the same position. As the defeated C-Sec were busy trying to recover themselves, the Predator had found himself following this strange trio, interested in seeing what else they were capable of. As he followed, the Hunter noticed the Shapeshifter also carried a large armoured man along with them. Moving like the wind, the Yautja leapt through the trees like a swift primate, swinging from branch to branch. Its active camouflage, coupled with its natural stealth and agility, allowed it to pass un-detected by the C-Sec agents that ran in pursuit of their fugitives below him.

After swinging from the trees onto the ground, he had made use of the talons on his hands and feet to dig into the nearest wall, stabbing them into the metal and scaling up the side of the Corridor that Axel and most of the crowd had stampeded into. With each stab of his talons, the Hunter scaled further and further towards the ceiling. Once he had climbed up far enough, he launched himself away from the wall, coming to a landing quietly on the catwalk running along the length of the ceiling across from him.

As he stood up from the grated flooring, he zoomed in the vision in his mask to track the movements of Axel and his companions, catching sight of them as they continued to weave through the terrified crowd while being chased by four battered Citadel agents.

Quickly the Predator ran after them down the catwalk, his heavy foot falls silenced by the screams and shouting of the crowd below. Sending periodic glances over the walk's railings, the Hunter was able to easily keep track of Axel as he began catching up to the fleeing terrorists. Suddenly the two threw themselves over to the side of the Corridor, pushing through the throngs of people before darting out of sight into a narrow orange lit alleyway.

"After them!" shouted the C-Sec agents' commanding officer.

As the agents shouted and fought to break through the crowd to continue the chase, the Predator simply kept running ahead. After a few seconds, he entered into another Corridor that ran in front of the one the crowd had ran into, coming to a matching catwalk that went past the one he was on in a large T formation. Turning to his right, the Hunter ran a few yards down the catwalk before coming up to a closed door. After tapping the door's glowing red console with his talon, the light turned green and the door slid open. Quickly stepping into a brown storage room of some kind, the door behind the Predator closed with a short series of clicks.

"Hey! What are you doing here? Nobody's allowed to be up here without..." began an angered voice as a young bald man in his early twenties stormed out from a connecting room off to the side.

Expecting to find a Duct Rat or some other trouble maker that usually stumbled in, the young man came around the corner at full speed, unknowingly running straight into the cloaked Predator's chest! The Hunter growled loudly as the man stumbled backwards, deliberately dropping his camouflage to reveal himself to the Human. The worker's look of anger immediately fell, replaced by one of shock and sheer terror.

_"...authorization,"_ he managed to blurt out as he looked up into the lifeless black eyes of the Yautja's face-mask.

Before the man could do anything, the Predator delivered a sharp blow to the side of his head! The strength behind the Hunter's arm was enough to knock the Human unconscious upon impact, the force of the strike spinning his body around before he fell to his knees and then following face first into the floor. Quickly stepping over the sleeping man, the Predator tapped the red console connected to the closed door just ahead of him.

After the door had opened to reveal another series of catwalks, the tall alien set off at a brisk run, navigating around barrels and vaulting over other obstacles set randomly about the walk's length. After a few minutes of running, the Predator came to another catwalk that was connected to the one he was already on, this one extending to his right before leading over top of another store filled Corridor that was bustling with citizens.

Coming to a stop at the beginning of this new catwalk, the Yautja activated the armoured gauntlet on his left arm, inputting several codes to bring up a small, glowing red holo-projection. Schematics for certain areas of the Citadel began to appear within this floating projection, layouts and blueprints covering every section of the station which the Hunter had stolen from an un-guarded C-Sec patrol car.

After cycling through various areas of the Presidium, the Predator stopped and zoomed in on a fully rendered layout of the Market District. After tracing the path that Axel and his company had taken during their flight from the park, the Predator was able to locate the alleyway they had used to evade Citadel Security.

Suddenly the Hunter snapped his head up; by what the map showed, the alley Axel was escaping through had an exit into the very Corridor the Predator was standing overtop of!

Shutting down his holoprojection, the Hunter quickly activated his cloaking device again, charging out onto the new catwalk at a breakneck sprint. The rapid thuds of the metal pads attached to the bottom of the Predator's clawed feet echoed loudly against the walls, causing many of the citizens below to raise their heads towards the catwalks in confusion at the harsh sounds that flashed over them.

While the Predator continued sprinting, he could see another closed door farther up ahead. But as he ran closer towards it, the door began to open, revealing a patrolling Turian agent with a compact assault rifle holstered on his back.

"What the...!" the Turian stammered as he began reaching for his rifle, clearly having seen the slight air distortion from the Yautja's cloaking device charging at him. Before the agent could fully draw his weapon, the Predator launched himself into the air, snapping out his leg in a flying kick!

The heel of the Hunter's foot struck the Turian in the chest, crushing several of the man's ribs as all the air was forced from his lungs. The agent was sent backwards from the hit, flying through the open doorway before smashing against one of the support beams holding up the catwalk. As the Turian crumbled to the grated floorway moaning in pain while holding his broken ribcage in place, the Predator sprinted past.

Looking over the side of the railing, the alien began to cycle through the vision settings in his mask, searching for any sign of the alleyway exit. As he continued to run, below the catwalk the Hunter could see a six man squad of fully armoured Turian agents patrolling along the Corridor's far wall of shops. After sprinting a few more feet, he suddenly skidded to a stop. Leaning forward to place his hands on the railing in front of him, the alien switched back to his infrared vision, enhancing the view by several frames.

Before him was the narrow exit of the alleyway that Axel had escaped into, and as the Hunter zoomed in closer, he was soon able to spot Axel himself step calmly out into the Corridor!

The Predator let out a low growl, satisfied that he had found Sorenson before he could disappear into the moving crowds. The Hunter switched his vision to a custom setting, changing his infrared so that Axel's body was the only one to be highlighted in orange and red, while the rest of the citizens became a dull shade of gray.

As the Hunter observed Axel cut through the groups of moving pedestrians, he took note of the Human's trained and methodical movements, impressed by his ability to stay hidden within a crowd, despite the images of him and his companions playing across the many screens throughout the Corridor. After turning around to the other side of the catwalk, the alien saw Axel pass under him before reaching the far wall, stopping for a moment by a Corridor bench to take in his surroundings.

But then something happened, the ring on the Human's right hand lit up with a bright silver colour. Many of the nearby citizens stopped in their tracks and stared as Axel immediately clamped his other hand over his right, snuffing out the light before anyone else could take notice. But he wasn't fast enough.

Suddenly a commotion could be heard coming from the Predator's left. As he turned his head, the Hunter zoomed in to see one of the armoured Turian squadmen quickly marching towards Axel, pushing aside any citizen standing in his way. "You there!" the Turian barked, drawing a Kessler pistol from his belt. As the agent came up behind Sorenson, the Predator quickly tapped a button on his right gauntlet, causing a short barrel to extend from the underside near his wrist.

"Show me your hands, and turn around slowly," ordered the Turian, training the pistol on the back of Axel's head. The Human extended his hands out to his sides, keeping them away from the belt full of weapons which the Predator could partially see underneath the large duffle sack that hung off of Sorenson's stomach.  
As Axel turned around to face the agent, the Hunter steadied himself, slowly aiming his right arm down at the Turian, the taloned index finger on his left hand poised above one of his gauntlet's buttons.

"Put your hands on your head and drop to your kne..." at that moment the Hunter pressed the button. A sharp whistle sound cut through the air as a small tranquilizer was fired from the Predator's gauntlet barrel. The Turian was cut off in mid sentence as the dart sunk into his neck, its instant administration causing his muscles to seize up.

_"What?"_ Axel blurted out as the agent fell forward, forcing him to catch the man's body before it could push him to the ground. As Axel slowly placed the Turian onto the bench, he noticed the Hunter's dart protruding from the agent's skin. After taking it out to examine it, Sorenson turned around and looked up towards the catwalk, very nearly locking eyes with the Predator.

As the two stared at each other, the alien let out a series of clicks that echoed faintly around the catwalk, seeing if he could test the human into finding him.

However, the next minute suddenly went by in a blur. Behind the Human, the tranquilized Turian began to grab for his arm, to which Axel tried to assist him. Instead Sorenson un-wittingly activated an alarm that alerted all nearby C-Sec agents. Axel immediately reacted, revealing himself to the panicking crowd by showing his belt full of weapons, and then forcing the citizens to scatter and flee by firing the Turian's Kessler several times into the ceiling, similar to how he had done in the Presidium park.

As this happened the Predator let out a loud, rapid series of clicks, an equivalent to full blown laughter in any other race's language. The chaos that Axel was causing on this station was more than amusing, it was hilarious! The screaming and crashing of bodies, added to the confused responses of the Turians nearly had the Hunter doubling over!

As the Predator finally regained his composure, he looked back down into the Corridor, catching a faint glimpse of Axel slipping into a large fortified store going by the name of, _'Irwin's Weapons and Antiques'_.  
He let out another small clicking chuckle, knowing that the Human would not be found in that store for the time being.

Just then, a thought occured to the Hunter. As far as he knew, he was now the only one of his kind in this new galaxy, leaving him cut off from the rest of the Yautja. Although honour and tradition demanded that he continue The Hunt, gathering trophies from worthy enemies and such, in this galaxy he had no other of his species to compare his prestige to. None of his brothers or sisters would look down on him if he decided to abandon The Hunt for a time, especially if it allowed him to find a way back to his galaxy later on.

Ergo the human phrase _'what they don't know, won't hurt them.'_

But then, as the Predator watched the store Axel had gone into, another thought came to him. He already had a suspicion that the ring on the Human's finger was the thing responisble for bringing him into this galaxy, perhaps without Axel's knowledge even. What if he were to follow Sorenson in his travels? Perhaps even aid him and his companions during their times of need.  
If he was going to disregard The Hunt entirely, then such a journey would give him a new purpose in this galaxy. If he could find out how Axel was able to use the ring, maybe he would be able to convince, or _force_, the Human into sending him back to his home. Only time would tell what Axel's true motivations were, and what part he would play in the future.

And besides, this was the most fun the Hunter had had in years! Why not help move it along?

Suddenly a heavy thud landed off to the Predator's right, causing him to snap out of his memories. Crouched in a battle ready pose on the grated floor of the catwalk, was another hissing Xenomorph!

Since the beast had no eyes, it relied on sound and smell to give it its sight, making the Yautja's active camouflage useless. Knowing this fact, the Hunter dropped his cloaking field to reveal himself and immediately activated his tri lasers, the vision in his face mask targeting the Serpent.  
But just as the beams swept across its body, the creature sprang forth, delivering a hard body check into the Predator's armoured chest. The Hunter was thrown backwards, his charged plasma shot going off pre-maturely, shooting past the Xeno's shoulder to impact onto the catwalk!

As a large sizzling hole was blasted into the walkway, the Hunter and Serpent continued to grapple with each other, both of them staggered back and forth from the new instablility of the structure.

The Predator roared in anger as the Xenomorph bit down, sinking its fangs hard into his shoulder. As his fluorescent green blood began to trickle down from the wound, the Hunter used his right hand to grab the Xeno's neck in a firm vice-grip, while using his other hand to clamp down around the creature's right leg.

The Xeno screamed from the pain of the Predator's grasp as it withdrew its fangs from his shoulder, its mouth dripping with glowing green blood. As the beast kicked and slashed at him, the Hunter quickly lifted it into the air and hurled it farther down the catwalk, narrowly dodging the Alien's flailing tail as it tried to make a strike at him. The creature smashed against the floor, rolling harshly several times before slamming painfully on its front.

The Hunter turned to face the Serpent as it got back up to its feet, the red triangle in its targeting computer blinking several times as it zeroed in on the creature's head. The Xenomorph stood up and snarled at him, awaiting the killing shot. But instead when the Predator fired its Plasma Caster, only a series of sparks errupted from the circuits attached to it!

With a wicked scream of delight, the Xeno charged towards the Hunter, no longer fearing his damaged weapon. Quickly the Yautja reached behind his shoulder and ripped out the compact form of his Combi Stick from its holster. As the Alien neared, the Hunter thrust out his arm and clicked a small button. Immediately a silver shaft with a diamond headed tip extended outwards from both ends, creating a dual tipped spear nearly six feet long!

With a skilled maneuvering of his hands, the Hunter grabbed both ends of the weapon and swept it in a horizontal spinning strike, the sharpened tip slashing deep across the Xenomorph's face! The creature screamed in rage as it staggered backwards, one of its clawed hands holding onto the side of its head for a moment before it sprang forward again.  
With a quick diagonal sweep of his left arm, the Predator brought the bottom tip of the Combi-Stick swiping in the same direction, carving a large gash across the Xeno's chest before exiting off its shoulder. The Alien screamed again as it stumbled backwards, this time falling against the railing of the catwalk to support itself, holding onto its bleeding chest with both hands.

The Hunter widened his stance, holding the spear level to his shoulder with both hands, ready to thrust it forward the moment the creature decided to charge again.

The Xeno snarled at this, right before jumping up onto the railing in a flash and springboarding itself into the air! The Predator hadn't been expecting the creature to move so quickly while injured, causing him to stumble backwards a step to reposition his weapon. With only half a second to spare, the Hunter thrust the spear upward, impaling the flying Alien through the sternum of its ribcage, exiting out through its back as it severed its spine!

The creature died almost instantly, but not before the weight of its falling body smashed into the Hunter, its claws slashing into his previously injured shoulder muscles that weren't protected by his armour.  
The Hunter growled from the fresh waves of pain as he staggered backwards from the hit, feeling his back slam against the railing behind him.

The sudden jarring stop caused the Predator to lose his grip on the Combi-Stick, which in turn caused the body of the Alien to go flying over his shoulder, plummeting over the side of the catwalk down towards the battle below, and taking his spear along with it!

In a desperate lunge, the Hunter outstretched his arm after the falling Alien, sharply grabbing onto the trailing end of the creature's tail before it was out of reach. The sight of the Xenomorph's body swinging back and forth above them caused a few of the fighting agents to look towards the catwalk, getting a clear sight of the Predator as he began pulling the body back up to him.  
But suddenly, before he could retrieve the Combi-Stick from the body, another Xenomorph landed on the catwalk!

Standing on the other side of the burned hole that the Hunter's stray Plasma blast had caused, the Alien hissed as it launched towards him. The creature easily cleared over the gap, slamming into the Hunter, with both claws scratching into his ornate chestplate.  
Being forced to let go of the first Alien's tail, the Predator allowed himself to be thrown to the ground. Using the creature's momentum similar to how Verrak Vakarian had done not so long ago, the Hunter rolled backwards, sharply grabbing the Alien by its shoulders and driving the heels of his feet into its stomach. The Xenomorph screamed as it was thrown overtop of the Predator, who immediately flipped his body around before jumping back up to his feet in an ancient fighting stance.

This Alien however seemed more agile than the last one, flipping itself around in mid air like an Olympic gymnast before coming to a screeching stop, its claws carving twelve long track marks into the grated metal. As the two eyed each other viciously, the Predator cast a glance down to the floor below them.

The body of the first Alien lay sprawled on its back amidst the battle still raging around it. Protruding vertically from the creature's chest was the Hunter's Combi-Stick, un-touched by the the Xeno's acid blood because of the hardened material it was made from. But as he enhanced his vision, the Hunter growled with angered apprehension at what he saw next.

Moving in from the side, the Shapeshifter known as Alec quickly came over to the corpse, pressing one of his black leather boots ontop of the creature's chest as he yanked the Combi-Stick out of its body!

In front of the Hunter, the Xenomorph stood up to its full height with its claws and tail flicking at the ready. It let out a screeching hiss, regaining the Yautja's attention. With a stomp of its clawed foot, it charged forwards, tail and claws spearing towards him!

Underneath his face-mask, the Predator twitched his mandibles into what the members of his race would have recognised as a slight smile. With a tensing of his wrist, two long serrated Wrist Blades jutted out from sockets on his right gauntlet, readying him to clash with the Alien head on.

* * *

The back of an Alien tail smashed into a Salarian agent, sending the man flying across the Corridor before smashing into a wall. As the creature turned and stormed forward, intent on slicing a distracted Turian agent in the back, an Asari agent jumped defiantly into its path, her body glowing with blue Biotic energies. The Xenomorph sneered and lunged at her, more then satisfied with killing this agent first.  
But as it flew across the distance between them, the Asari raised her hand towards it, the Biotics surrounding her flaring even brighter.

Suddenly the creature's body was enveloped in a blue haze, its limps flailing outward as it stopped dead in mid air, as if suspended in zero gravity. The Xeno screamed as it thrashed from side to side, clawing out towards the Asari as she continued to levitate it. The agent smirked as she manipulated the creature's body, slamming it hard into the floor before throwing it towards an awaiting group of agents, who promptly overheated their weapons as they riddled its body full of holes.

But then, as she turned to help the Turian behind her, another Xenomorph charged at her from the side! The creature smashed into her mid-section before she had a chance to re-ignite her Biotics, throwing her to the ground as it landed ontop of her. The Asari struggled to free herself as the Alien straddled her, pinning her wrists painfully to the floor with its claws to keep her from using her abilities.

The strength behind the creature's grip caused the agent to wince in pain, her stuggling becoming weaker as it tightened its legs around her mid-section. She turned her head to the side as the Alien slowly brought its face closer to her's, its cold breath making her shiver as streaks of slime drooled onto her cheek. The Xeno gave a sadistic hiss as it opened its mouth, its inner set of jaws slowly extending outwards, eager to taste her fair blue skin.  
The agent closed her eyes, baring her teeth as she kept trying to push the creature off, unwilling to let it see her whimper in fear during her final seconds of life.

"Ah ah ah, no kissing on the first date!" came a gruff male voice from behind. The Xeno hissed as it pulled away from the Asari, twisting its body around to find the source of the voice while still keeping the woman pinned to the floor.

Suddenly a massive 500 pound Siberian Tiger charged from behind the creature!

Pouncing into the air, the tiger roared out as its sharp claws extended from its large paws, slashing into the Xeno. The large animal slammed into the Alien with the force of a battering ram, shoving it off of the Asari as both Xeno and tiger slid across the floor, rolling over each other in a savage scuffle accompanied by hisses and roars. Using its heavier bulk, the tiger pinned the Xenomorph to the ground, withdrawing one of its clawed paws from its chest and slashing down through the creature's neck!

The Alien sputtered and hissed as it lay dying from the slash wounds in its throat, unable to move beneath the animal's larger weight. On top of the Xeno, the tiger's form began to shrink, its body becoming more slender and human like. As its orange and black fur disappeared, it was replaced with a black SS uniform and samurai armour plates, while short blond hair sprouted from the human's head.

"And _that_, is no way to treat a lady!" Alec barked at the creature as he finished shifting back into his original form, pointing over to the Asari as she sat up to look at him. The Xeno gave one last choking breath before dying, its whole body going limp as Alec stood up from it.

"Speaking of which, are you alright?" asked the Guardian as he walked over to the agent, offering her a hand.  
"I'm fine, I've had worse dates then that before," the Asari said casually as she accepted his hand, wiping away the slime on her cheek as he pulled her to her feet. Off to the side, several C-Sec agents had begun grouping together, all of them charging down the center of the Corridor roaring battle cries, and firing at the remaining Xenomorphs still fighting other handfulls of agents scattered around the area.  
Charging at the head of this shouting mob of people was the saber wielding Yoda and the battle hardened Verrak Vakarian.

"I think your co-worker's are gonna need some help," Alec said to the Asari agent, inclining his head to the growing army charging through the Corridor. The agent nodded with determination, her Biotics flaring briefly around her body in readiness.  
"Thats exactly what I plan to do..." she began fiercely, regarding the handfull of surviving Xenomorph's with a sneer of contempt. But before she charged off to join the battle, she turned back to Alec with a soft and affectionate look in her eyes.

"...but thanks for saving me, _Tiger_," the agent said with a warm smile, enunciating the final word in a playful tone. Before Alec knew what she was doing, the Asari gently grabbed his shoulder and pulled him closer, planting a soft kiss on his left cheek.

Alec's eyebrows shot up in surprise as he looked back at the agent, a coy smile forming on his face. The Asari gave a friendly wink before running off towards the charging mob of C-Sec, the blue energies swirling around her body as she threw a Biotic slam against one of the nearby Aliens. Alec's smile never left his face as he watched her leave, tenderly touching the spot on his cheek where she had kissed.

_"Merci cherie,"_ he uttered in a French accent.

Suddenly however Alec flinched as a loud sickening crunch smacked against the ground behind him, shattering the good moment he was having.

The Guardian spun around, talons extended ready for battle, only to find a dead Xenomorph sprawled out across the floor on its back, its arms and legs twisted at odd angles. Standing up vertically out of its chest was an ornate spear of some kind.  
_'That's the Predator's Combi-Stick,'_ Alec thought with a frown. Up above, the sounds of fighting and thrashing could be heard, accompanied by familiar hisses and growls echoing out against the ceiling. Looking up towards the catwalk, Alec squinted to get a good sight of the now visible Predator throwing a Xenomorph harshly over top of him.

Off to the side, an injured Xeno knocked the assault rifle from a Human agent's grasp, right before grabbing the man by the collar of his armour and throwing him into the group of advancing C-Sec! Both Yoda and Verrak dived in opposite directions, dodging out of the way as the screaming man flew past, his body slamming into and knocking over most of the agents that had been charging behind the two leaders.  
As the agents began picking themselves up, Verrak and Yoda were already on their feet and charging the hissing beast head-on.

"Hope you don't mind if I borrow this..." Alec said quickly up to the Predator, not really expecting the creature to answer or acknowledge him. After swiftly crossing over to the Alien body, Alec pressed the heel of his jackboot against the creature's chest while taking hold of the Hunter's spear with his right hand.

As he pushed his foot down deeper, the Guardian ripped the ancient weapon from the Xeno's body, spinning it around a few times to test its weight and movement. Alec gave a thin smile as he held the weapon.

_'Just like old times...'_ he thought fondly to himself, as he remembered his more brighter journeys with some of the ring's previous Bearer's that he had been assigned to teach, travelling across ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and the Roman Empire.  
Alec had been a master of spear fighting back in those days, even if he and his charge were neck deep in some king of trouble he could assure victory the moment a spear or fighting stick were thrown to him.

Alec took the Combi-Stick with both hands, spacing them out evenly. Then in the blink of an eye, he thrust the spear out in a perfect strike, testing his reaction timing.

_"Excellent,"_ he said quietly, satisfied as he turned back to the battle.

The Xenomorph snapped its jaws as it charged towards the advancing Verrak and Yoda, leaping into the air overtop of them, snarling as it came down.  
"Get clear!" Vakarian shouted to the Jedi as he dropped his assault rifle, reaching behind his back and pulling out his Katana shotgun. As Yoda jumped out of the way, Verrak activated and raised his weapon up to the falling creature, ready to blast a basketball sized hole through its stomach.

But suddenly out of nowhere, Alec ran into view!  
Before the sargeant could do anything, the Guardian launched himself into the air with a running leap, drawing his spear arm back as he held the Predator's Combi-Stick high above his head, looking like a modern depiction of Zeus hurling a lightning bolt as he flew towards the Xenomorph.  
With a mighty war cry Alec thrust out his arm, sending the Hunter's spear shooting across the distance between the two of them into the Alien's head.

Accompanied by a wet splitting sound, the spear impacted and skewered through the creature's skull like a Shish Kabob!  
The creature died on impact, its body crashing against the floor before sliding to a stop at Verrak's feet, the Combi-stick jutting out of its head towards the ceiling. Up ahead of him, Alec had already landed in a roll and was standing triumphantly before Vakarian, Yoda, and the rest of the agents.

"YEAH! Guess I'm not as rusty as I thought!" the Guardian shouted with pride, fist pumping the air somewhat.

But farther off behind him, short screams and the crashing of bodies could be heard as five of the few remaining Xenomorphs slashed or threw aside the C-Sec agents that were still fighting them.  
The group snarled as they noticed their slain sibling lying in a sizzling pool of its own blood, while Alec stood with his back turned to them still in mid-congratulation of himself. With a commanding hiss from the creature in front, the pack of Xenos charged forward as one, intent on avenging their murdered family member by tearing Alec to pieces!

Immediatley Yoda and Verrak, along with most of the group of C-Sec standing with them, activated their weapons as they noticed the approaching five.  
"Watch and learn young one!" Yoda said as he used the Force to front flip high into the air, soaring overtop of Alec and the dead Alien. Alec cocked an eyebrow in disbelief as he watched the Jedi sail over him.

"Young one? I'm older than _you_ by a few thousand years!"

Just as the leading Xeno was about to leap into the air towards the group, Yoda came slamming down ontop of its head, stabbing his lightsaber down through the center of its brain before springboarding back into the air. As the lead Xenomorph's dead body slid across the floor, two more of the Aliens tried to attack the flying Master at the same time, leaping towards the Jedi from either side.

With lightning reflexes, Yoda transferred his saber hilt into his other hand and stabbed the glowing blade sideways into the skull of the Xeno on his left. Then in the blink of an eye, he turned his wrist and brought the saber arching back overtop of him, twisting his small body in a mid-air spin as his saber slashed down diagnally through the torso of the Alien on his right, cutting its entire body in half!

As Yoda landed on the floor, the fourth of the five Xenos made a wide swipe with his tail, the sharp point slicing towards the Jedi's head. But before the tail could strike him, Yoda launched himself back into the air, landing ontop of the tail as it passed under him. With Force induced speed, Yoda ran up the length of the creature's limb, pouncing from each of its armoured plates like the steps of a staircase towards its chest. As the Jedi came closer, the Alien tried to attack with one of its claws, making a swipe with its arm.  
But Yoda was quicker, bringing his saber up and slicing down through the Xenomorph's forearm! Before the Xeno could scream in pain like all the others had before it, Yoda sprang forward off the creature's shoulder, using both hands to slice his saber horizontally through its neck, decapitating it in one swift strike.

As the Jedi landed in another roll, he was able to barely dodge the swiping claws of the fifth and final Xeno as it launched its attack, screaming with rage at the loss of its four other siblings. As the creature's arms swept over him, Yoda was able to swing out his saber arm off to the side, slicing through the Xeno's right ankle as he rolled past. As the creature tumbled to the floor from the loss of its foot, Yoda sprang back up to his feet, spinning around to face the beast with his saber pointed in front of him.

The final Xenomorph was kneeling on its injured leg, one of its clawed hands planted on the ground to keep it from falling over. Globs of slime spat from its lips as it turned its head to face Yoda, hissing as it did.

Suddenly however, a loud weapon's discharge exploded from behind the Alien, accompanied by a short flash of light. In the next milli-second, a large hole was blasted through the back of the Alien's head!

As the steaming body fell in a heap on the floor, Verrak Vakarian could be seen stepping over the five dead bodies as he came over to Yoda, the barrel of his Katana shotgun smoking from the killing shot he'd just made. Farther behind them, Alec stooped down and withdrew the Predator Combi-Stick from the head of the Xeno that he had killed earlier. As he turned around to survey the carnage that Yoda had left in his wake, he began to shake his head with a small chuckle.

_"SHOW OFF!"_ he shouted, cupping a hand around his mouth. Even Yoda laughed somewhat as the Guardian called down to him.

As this happened farther away amidst the carnage, Jango Fett stood in the center of the Corridor surrounded by three Xenos, all of them charging towards him. In the blink of an eye he lowered his silver pistol near his hip and fired, using his honed Mandalorian accuracy to flick from Xeno to Xeno, nailing a direct blast straight into each of the creature's faces.  
Each of them died instantly, hitting the floor and sliding to a stop at Jango's feet. Satisfied with his work, the bounty hunter spun his pistol on his finger in a true Western Gunslinger style as he slid it into the holster on his leg.

With the loss of those three Aliens, added to the five killed by Yoda, there were now only three other Aliens left in the Corridor (if you're including the one the Predator was fighting at the time)

One of these Aliens screamed as the agents surrounding it began to attack with their bare hands, some of them even charging and bodychecking it in an attempt to drive the creature to the ground. As this Xeno continued to fight for its life, an Asari and Salarian agent grabbed each of its arms, keeping it from using its claws against the rest of the agents around them.  
But this only made it even angrier, as it used its clawed feet to deliver sharp kicks that sent several of the C-Sec officers flying backwards. As each man or woman was knocked to the ground, the Alien threw its body from side to side in an attempt to free itself from the people restraining it.

"Bring it down!" several of the agents were shouting as blasts from assault rifles began scoring more critical hits against the Xeno's toughened hyde, while others were landing deep stab wounds as they buried the blades of their combat knives into its thrashing limbs. As the creature gave a dying hiss of rage, a Human agent threw down her gun and charged from behind. As she launched herself into the air she landed roughly onto the Alien's spiked back, wrapping her arms around the creature's throat in a vice choke hold.

As this woman held onto the bucking Xenomorph, several others began following her example, abandoning all concept of their own safety and charging the beast head on. This time the Xeno let out a different scream, a long blood curdling scream of desperation as more and more people began to jump onto its shoulders and tail, even its enhanced strength being un-able to sustain their combined weight. Fighting to its last breath, the Xenomorph eventually gave out as it was submerged in a pile up of agents, submitting to the relentless barrage of rifle butts, combat knives, and angered fists that smashed against it.

But then suddenly as the agents all began to stand up from the mangled body, a flying Asari agent came smashing into their backsides, sending many of the agents tumbling back to the ground! As the disoriented group began to assess their situation, a fit of screaming rage could be heard just a few feet away from them.

The final Xenomorph still fighting the agents had thrown itself into a Berserker rage, hacking and slashing with its tail and claws, either cutting down agents where they stood or sending them flying across the Corridor in different directions.  
"All assault rifles converge on that creature!" Verrak shouted to any agent still holding a functioning rifle as he and the rest of the group that he had rallied charged towards the thrashing Alien.

By now the creature had seen the remaining strength of the agents as they surged towards it, knowing that this would be its last fight. So why not make it the greatest fight of its life!

With rage fueled reflexes, the Xeno grabbed the two closest agents by their necks and threw them into the advancing group, knocking over several gunners and a few Asari before they could have the chance to use their Biotics. The Xeno made a charge of its own, snapping its tail around itself like a bullwhip, tripping or slicing through the agents as they tried to get closer, screaming with delight as it did.

As more and more agents were struck down, Master Yoda dodged from side to side to avoid each body that fell in his way as he charged towards the final creature, lightsaber extended and flaring behind him. As the Jedi charged, the Xenomorph swept its tail in front of itself with the intent of slicing through the green man as he ran, also smashing away any of the remaining agents unfortunate enough to be in its path.

As this happened Yoda dodged down low to avoid the swipe, sliding the last few feet across the floor on the side of his leg, while the woosh of air created by the tail as it passed over him caused his claw-torn robes to flap around his body in a dramatic action-movie style. (Pretty cool huh!)

In the split second before the tail could be out of reach, Yoda brought his glowing green blade swiping over him in a high arc, slicing clean through the middle of the Alien's limb just like he had done the first time he had battled with these creatures.  
But instead of being stunned by pain or screaming, the Xeno mearly hissed and lashed out with its arm, bringing the back of its left fist striking into the face of the un-prepared Jedi!

"UGH!" Yoda grunted painfully as he was thrown backwards into the mass of injured agents behind him, his body spinning somewhat from the force of the hit.

"Hey ugly..._CATCH!"_ shouted Alec as he charged to the aid of his companion, drawing back his arm that held the Predator's Combi-Stick and hurling the weapon straight and true towards the creature like a lighting bolt from the gods.  
The point of the spear stabbed and skewered through the creature's right shoulder, causing the Alien to jerk to the side with a painful cry as it struggled to remain standing. With the Xeno distracted, Alec dashed forward and planted a flying martial-arts kick straight into the center of its chest.  
As the creature was thrown backwards a few feet, Alec was able to grab hold of the Hunter's weapon and yank the protruding spear from its shoulder.

The Xenomorph skid another foot as it hit the floor, but soon after, it had already flipped itself back to its feet with its razor claws bared in front of it. As it flashed its slime covered talons at him, Alec gave a wicked smile as he looked to his free hand.

"Hey, guess what? I got those _too_!" he said with a chuckle as he extended his talons for a moment. But as he turned back to face the Xeno he was shocked to find it coming straight at him!

Before the Guardian could do anything, the Alien rammed into him with the force of a raging Spanish bull, sending its curved head slamming into his chest. The force of the hit sent Alec flying back several feet before he hit the ground, to which he allowed himself to somersault backwards so that he would at least end up back on his knees.

"Alrighty then, less hiss and more fight..._I like it_!" Alec shouted as he sprang back up from the ground, stabbing the tip of the Combi-Stick into the floor and using it like an Olympic Pole-jumper to help him surge forwards. (To this day, what happened next has been described by witnesses as one of the most odd, yet epic battles they've ever seen.)

The Xeno hissed as it made a quick swipe with its claws, but in a flash Alec brought up one end of the spear and viciously parried it away! This continued on for several moments, a ferocious loop of the Xeno striking and kicking to which Alec would block or slash with the end of the Predator's weapon.

Behind the Guardian, Yoda had gotten back to his feet and was now standing next to Verrak and several of his agents, all of them watching the spectacle with wide eyed wonder. As the two combatants traded blows, the entire group simply stood silently flicking their heads back and forth between the Guardian and the Alien, too wrapped up in the action to consider helping him.

While many of the agents had their eyes fixed on the Xeno, it was Alec's form and technique in spear fighting that was really catching their attention, as he continued to twist and turn his body in intricate patterns. His handling of the Predator Combi-Stick was unlike anything they had ever seen, spinning the metal shaft in an odd compilation of circles, slashes, strikes, and stabs.

Some of the more erratic moves he was even able to complete using only one hand!

While keeping his eyes fixed on the fight, Verrak leaned down closer to the shorter Jedi at his side.  
"Does he always fight like that?" the sargeant whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Yoda was just as intrigued by Alec's fighting style, the Master had never seen anything like it, even amongst other Jedi who had favoured the double-bladed lightsaber.  
"Never with that kind of weapon have I seen him fight before," Yoda answered with a small shake of his head

The Xenomorph had now begun to lose ground against this unstoppable barrage of moves, its body suffering from the damage the Combi-Stick had done to its shoulder, along with several gashes and cuts that Alec had delivered during the few minutes they had been fighting. Staggering back a step after deflecting a swipe made to its face, the Xeno weakly raised one of its claws and slashed down towards Alec.  
Quickly the Guardian swatted it away with one end of the spear, but then suddenly he spun his body around and drove the other tip straight into the Alien's abdomen!

The waves of fresh pain that now coursed through the creature were more than enough to inflame the hatred and rage it felt for the enemy it faced, its weakened strength returning in force to allow it to kill Alec once and for all.

As the Guardian tried to withdraw the spear from the Xeno's gut, the creature suddenly hissed and grabbed the weapon with both hands, pulling it deeper through its own body until the sharpened point pierced and exited out through its back.  
As the Xeno physically impaled itself, it was also dragging an astonished Alec closer and closer to it.

"Oh crap..." Alec said, wide eyed with horror at what the creature was doing to itself. The Alien snarled before violently swiping its left hand across the Guardian's face, sending him spinning to the floor as he lost his grip on the spear. As he tried to pick himself back up from the battle scorched flooring, the Xeno gripped the Predator's Combi-Stick with both hands and painfully ripped the acid soaked weapon out from its stomach.

Ignoring the mind numbing pain from this fatal wound, the creature summoned all of its strength to heft the spear in one hand and turn towards Alec. The Guardian had only just turned himself over so that he was laying on his back, facing the Xeno that stood over him. With one final hiss, the Alien quickly drew back its arm that held the spear. But before it could throw the weapon and impale Alec, Verrak Vakarian along with several of his most able bodied agents came charging in! As the Turian squad leader came near the creature, he jumped forward with his arms outstretched and slamming into the Xenomorph's side!

The Predator's spear was hurled from the Alien's grasp as the agents charged it, shooting down towards Alec and stabbing directly into where the Guardian's head had been a minute before, had he not so timely jerked his body to the side before the weapon could hit him.

Across the floor Verrak and his remaining agents continued to tackle the Xeno, each of them getting knocked to the ground one after the other by a sharp swipe of its arms as it continued to back up step by step. After getting knocked down himself, Verrak quickly picked himself back up and looked over to one of his last Turian agents off to his right.

"Toss me your blade!" shouted the squad leader as he outstretched his hand to the agent.

The Turian immediately ripped his combat kife from his belt and threw it over to his superior as Vakarian dashed head-on towards the hissing, dying creature. Flipping the knife around so that the point faced downward, Verrak launched himself at the Xeno as it knocked the last of his agents to the ground. Shouting out an ancient Turian war cry, the squad leader held his weapon high above his head as he slammed down onto the creature, burying the blade deep into its neck line all the way up to the hilt.

But even then! After having been shot, stabbed, clubbed, and even impaled, the Xenomorph still managed to cling to life as it fell backwards onto the floor with Verrak sprawled ontop of it. Quickly pressing his free hand against its chest, Vakarian withdrew his smoking knife from under the Xeno's collar-bone and held it high above him again, ready to drive it through the creature's thrashing and jaw snapping head!

However, just as the blade's blood soaked tip was diving towards its cranium, the Alien used every reserve of energy it had to snap its clawed hand up and clamp around Verrak's wrist in a steel vice-grip, stopping the weapon inches away from its eyeless, slime covered face.  
Before the squad leader could properly defend himself, the dying Alien used its free hand to swipe its claws against the side of the Turian's head, carving six short gashes across the left side of his face!

"AGRH!" Verrak shouted in pain, the force of the Xeno's swipe knocking him to the side. As the squad leader rolled over to face the creature laying only inches away from him, he barely had enough time to pray to the spirits for salvation as the Xeno turned over to him and opened its fanged mouth with a roar, its inner set of jaws ready to snap out and end his life in one bite!

But instead of an instant death, a shadow suddenly passed over the two of them, somewhat blocking out the blinding glare of the emergency light they had fallen under. Just then the Xeno let out a terrible scream of pain as its head pulled away from Verrak's face to look up at what was standing over them.

"Sorry Bugface, but you are not going to be making your last meal out of _this_ Turian!" said Alec angrily through clenched teeth, as he used both hands to drive the shaft of the Predator Combi-Stick deeper through the center of the Xeno's chest which he had just stabbed into.

Verrak looked up at Alec in astonishment, he had just been saved by one of the very people he had been sent to arrest on charges of terrorism. And yet despite the chase they'd been led on, here this man was fighting to save not only his life but the lives of the agents under the sargeant's command.

Many other agents surrounding the battle were also taken aback by Alec's heroic save, as he continued to struggle against the Xeno's constant thrashings. However despite Alec's efforts, the creature still had a single ounce of its rage fueled strength left in it, strength enough that it was able to grab hold of the Predator's spear and pull it out of its torso for a second time. This time however it managed to lift the spear, and subsequently Alec as well, into the air overtop of it.  
"WHOA!" Alec shouted as the Xeno threw the Guardian tumbling across the floor off behind it! As Alec skid forward across the polished metal, the last few of Verrak's agents still able to hold a gun charged towards the downed Alien.

But before they could train their weapons on it, Jango Fett quickly shoved his way out infront of them. With one swift motion the bounty hunter stormed up, stomped his armoured boot onto its injured chest, and delivered three bright red blasts into its head, blowing the Xenomorph's skull to pieces.

As everyone gawked at the grissly scene, Jango looked up from the body to stare each person in the eye.  
"Was _THAT_ so hard?" barked the Mandalorian as he shoved his pistol back into its holster. As Alec stood up from where the Alien had thrown him, he could hear Jango muttering "..._blasted amatures_," as both he and Yoda walked over to the Guardian, leaving the rest of the agents in stunned silence.

"Well...that was fun wasn't it?" asked Alec as he held the Predator's Combi-Stick at his side, making his remarke without any humor or mirth to his voice. Yoda shared his feelings as all three of them surveyed the damage around the area.  
The small fires from destroyed electrical equipment had begun to die down, but the sight of all the bodies and debris that littered across the length of the Corridor had by no means dampened its severity.

"So much death..." Yoda said grimly as the surviving agents began tending to their wounded.  
"What the hell were those things?" Jango asked Alec as he turned towards him. Alec looked over at the most recently killed Xeno.  
"They're called Xenomorphs, a parasitic organism originating from deep space," he said as he pointed the tip of his spear down at the body.  
"If these things prefer the colds of the Void, how did an army of them show up in a highly populated area?" the bounty hunter asked as he looked back out at the remaining force of agents.

"The ring..." Yoda said suddenly, spinning around to the both of them. Both men looked down at the little green Jedi.  
"The silver band Axel wears upon his finger, a key it appears to be, capable of opening doorways to other worlds and summoning their inhabitants to this universe." Yoda looked to Jango in particular.  
"Similar to this, were the conditions that brought both you and I to this place bounty hunter."

Jango immediatley shot his head over to Alec.  
"So Axel is responsible for all of this!" the hunter stated as he swept his good arm around him, indicating the carnage. Alec wheeled on the Mandalorian, his grip tightening on the shaft of the spear as he cast a menacing glare at Jango.

"_No_! The ring is an entity all to itself, it has thoughts, its has emotions, and it has abilities. Everything that has happened has been because the ring is taking fragements from Axel's memories and summoning them here to either hinder or help him in his quest to master his powers." Alec stated, motioning between both Jango and Yoda to indicate the contrasting reasons for why they had been brought to the Mass Effect Universe.

"If anyone is to blame for all of this, it's the_ ring_, not Axel," the Guardian finished firmly.

As Jango relaxed slightly from this answer, another thought suddenly occured to him, originating from something Alec had let slip just a few seconds ago. But before the bounty hunter could press him on this, a Xenomorphic scream sounded out from the shadows of the ceiling. Everyone nearby spun around, looking up towards the catwalk that ran nearby.

Upon it stood the battered and scarred form of the Predator, who was still locked in a savage battle with the last surviving Xenomorph still in the Corridor. At the moment the Predator had made a vicious swipe with his bloodied wrist blades, slashing across the Alien's gut. The creature screamed one last time as it lunged forward, both it and the Hunter locking wrists as they went head to head, straining to kill one another.  
A smug grin formed on Alec's face as he pushed in between Jango and Yoda.

"Stand aside gentlemen, I'm a _professional_," he said as he held the spear up near his shoulder, ready to hurl it up towards the catwalk and strike down the final Alien.

But then, it was at that moment when a powerful shudder suddenly shook the entire Corridor, as if a giant foot had just stomped onto the ground.

Alec froze in place as he felt it, his arm already draw back, ready to make the kill. A few seconds went by before another shudder echoed out, this time coming closer to them, eminating from farther down the Corridor. Alec lowered the spear and turned to face the far end, his eyes wide and frantic.

_'Oh gods, tell me the ring didn't summon the Belrog!'_

As the Guardian began searching Axel's memories to identify whatever could be causing these stomping shudders, Jango and Yoda had backed up to stand on either side of him with their pistol and lightsaber drawn. "Riddle me this then, _professional_, whats coming our way now?" asked Jango mockingly, clearly not caring if he got an answer.  
Suddenly a monsterous hissing growl rang throughout the Corridor, coming from the source of the stomping that continued to shake the walls around everyone. The moment he heard this, Alec became certain of what exactly this new creature was.

"I forgot to mention, bounty hunter, that the Xenomorphs operate on a Hive mentality, all of then work, serve, and kill for the greater good of..." began the Guardian, silently relishing the sight of the bounty hunter tensing his muscles as each stomp came closer.  
Suddenly the sound of breaking glass began to accompany the approaching foot steps, as the line of blinding white emergency lights began to wink out of existance one by one, each one being smashed in sequence by something huge, black, and slimy.

As a bloodied Verrak and a small group of his most fit agents came up behind the trio, a large clawed foot emerged from the thick blackness that the other emergency lights had once been illuminating, slamming down onto the flooring several feet ahead of them, causing the metal to twist and break beneath the creature's weight, forming a small crater under it. Verrak and his agents, along with Yoda, Jango, and Alec immediatley raised their weapons as the towering beast stepped closer to the cone of light they were standing in, revealing its full body to them .

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you..._the Queen_," announced Alec as they all looked up, wide eyed with shock, at the Matriarch of the Xenomorphs.

* * *

"ON YOUR RIGHT!" I shouted to Bruce over the constant buzz of weapons fire.

The Turian spun towards the area I had warned, immediately sinking several thermal rounds into the head of the charging Xeno that I had barely noticed a second earlier. As the Turian store keeper and I continued to hold our own area of the broken ring of counters, Irwin stood off to our left with his feet spread wide apart, bracing himself against the jarring recoil of his hand held mini-gun as he continued to spit out rapid lines of thermal fire, lighting up the walls with a constant flare of red light as he scored kill after kill.

By now the remaining Xenomorphs had begun charging us in earnest, slithering out of the holes that they had broken through the carved ceiling and jumping down to the debris strewn ground. But even as the bodies began to pile up, the others would simply scurry over them in their mad dash to get to us.  
_"Axel! Hostile creature detected 60 degrees to your left!"_ reported Haxon-17's clear voice through the small ear-piece I was still wearing.  
"What're you talking about, they're _all_ hostile!" said Bruce as he fired off several more rounds.

Keeping the butt of my assault rifle pulled to my shoulder, I quickly turned in the direction the A.I. had suggested. Sure enough, hissing and clawing over top of one of its dead breathren, an enraged Xeno sprung up on its hind legs and charged towards the counter I stood behind.

"Thanks for the heads up!" I said quickly as I pulled the scope of the rifle back up to my eye, firing several well placed rounds clean through the Xeno's neck and forehead. But as the dead body slammed against the counter, another Xeno charged in from the darkness close behind it. Immediatley I flicked the barrel of my gun towards it, squeezing the trigger several times.  
But to my horror only a plum of gray smoke puffed out of the barrel, accompanied by the small beeping alarm which signalled that my gun had overheated!

"Damn it!" I swore as I threw down the weapon. The Xeno screamed as it continued towards me, jumping up and springboarding off of the body of its recently deceased sibling that lay slumped over the counter, launching itself into the air several feet overtop of me. With just a second to spare, I swept my arm down and snatched up the Master shotgun that I had dropped at my feet when this fight had began.

As the hissing, slime dripping creature decended upon me, I bared my teeth with a scowl as I brought the shotgun up to my shoulder. With one squeeze of the trigger I blasted a sizzling, smoking hole straight through the Xenomorph's abdomen, the force of the blow causing the creature to do an awkward back flip in mid air before smashing down to the floor less than a foot in front of me.

Without any second thoughts, I brought the shotgun down and blasted another shot into the Alien's head, tearing it apart. (NEVER underestimate a Xeno!)  
"Haxon! How many are left!" I shouted as three more of the hissing creatures smashed down from the ceiling, slithering into the shadows to remain un-seen. The A.I. took a moment to process as we continued to fight.  
_"Sensors indicate that there are still eight more creatures moving within the store's interior."_ An accented fit of laughter rang out off to my left as Irwin tore another Xenomorph to pieces. As the whine from the mini-gun's spinning barrels continued, the former Major cast a glance in our direction and gave us a quick thumbs up.

"You can make that seven now!" he said as he turned back to his area of the store, keeping his eyes pealed for the remaining Aliens. Off to my other side a Xeno hissed in rage as it charged towards us, but was quickly silenced by the buzz of Bruce's Master assault rifle. He allowed himself a small chuckle as the creature's body crumbled in front of his half acid eaten counter.

"Make it six actually..."

I chuckled myself as I glanced over at the Turian. But as I did, the small smile on my face suddenly dropped. For another Xenomorph was stealthily lifting itself up over the counter from the cover of the shadows, bringing itself within striking distance of Bruce's un-protected backside!

"Bruce! GET DOWN!" I shouted as I turned my shotgun towards the creature. But the Turian store keeper didn't quite hear me, only half noticing my warning, which caused him to instinctually spin around.  
The Xeno had now pulled itself upon the top of the counter onto its knees, its slime dripping teeth bared in a threatening sneer. As Bruce spun around, the Alien screamed as it drew one of its clawed hands high above its head and swiped down towards the Turian's chest! He barely had a chance to raise his weapon.

"BRUCE!" Irwin and I both shouted at the same time as the Australian also turned towards him. The quick sound of the Xeno's claws tearing through the cloth of his business suit and swiping through the top layer of his chest was accompanied by a short agonizing scream from Bruce. The force of the hit sent him spinning through the air across the diameter of the broken ring, causing him to smash into the counter behind us, the very counter which held the machine that was still building my combined super gun.

With instant reflexes I fired my shotgun at the Xeno still perched ontop of the counter, blasting half of the creature's head from its neck as it fell backwards off its polished surface. With that final shot, the beeping heat alarm began squawking from the side of my weapon.  
Throwing it aside, I quickly drew the M5 Phalanx still clipped to my belt and ran over to Bruce, who had begun to pick himself up into a sitting position with his back leaning against the counter, albeit slowly and painfully.

As I came over to him, Irwin was moving right behind me, backing up step by step as he began blind firing, spraying thermal rounds from left to right in an attempt to keep the five remaining Aliens at bay. The creatures themselves had taken to hiding behind the remains of the counters in addition to the shadows, making it that much harder for Irwin to actually hit any of them.

"How bad is it?" I asked Bruce as I kneeled next to him, keeping my Phalanx at the ready in case Irwin needed help. The Turian growled in pain as he laid a hand on his blue blood soaked chest, while with the other he ripped his Carniflex out from its holster.  
"I'm not gonna let a few scratches put me down..." he hissed as he activated his pistol, holding it up at the ready. However with each movement of his body he wheezed and gripped his torn suit even tighter.  
"But, if we _do_ make it through this, I think I am gonna need a container of medi-gel, _or two_..." he said through his sharp gritted teeth.

Suddenly a huge beeping alarm rang out right in front of us. Both me and Bruce looked over at Irwin with cocked eyebrows (or brow-ridge in Bruce's case)  
The barrels of Irwin's mini-gun were glowing red hot with wisps of steam rising up from the metal. The gun's metallic whine slowly ground to a halt as all of the barrels began to slow down in their rapid rotations.  
"Oh come on, not now!" the former Major said as he began rapidly tapping several holographic button's along the gun's length in order to start it back up, but to no avail.

"I'd rather take some kind of ammunition than this stupid overheat system!" Irwin shouted angrily as he threw down the smoking weapon, drawing his own Phalanx from his belt. I had to supress a knowing smirk that I couldn't help feeling, thinking back to the change made in Mass Effect 2 going from overheating to picking up thermal clips.  
_'Careful what you wish for...'_  
While keeping his pistol pointed ahead, the Aussie backed up until he was standing exactly to my left, while I still knelt with Bruce on my right.

With the mini-gun no longer shooting at them, the five remaining Xeno's vaulted overtop of the smoking remains of the counters that Irwin had demolished in his earlier barrages. Advancing on their hind legs, the Xenomorphs bared their claws and fangs towards us, streams of slime drooling down from their chops as they relished the thought of snacking on our insides.

"Well...looks like none of us are gonna be getting that 50,000," Bruce joked, even though it caused him pain right after. Setting my Phalanx' Incindiary settings to maximum, I gripped the handle of my gun with both hands, aiming it straight at the middle Xeno that was advancing directly towards me.  
"We're not dead yet..." I began.

But then suddenly a loud chime sounded out from behind us. This sudden sound caused the Aliens to stop in their tracks and look at each other, as if in confusion. It also caused the three of use to look at eachother with deep frowns, as silently asking the other where that noise had come from.

Keeping my gun on them, I stood up and glanced behind me to look at the automated machine. The small screen that housed the glowing green numbers showing the amount of time needed to complete my modified weapon was now flashing on and off, with the numbers _'0:00'_ disappearing and re-appearing in rythm. Just beside it the large compartment that Irwin had slotted the Master shotgun, sniper, and assault rifle into had now opening, shining out white light and billowing thick swirls of steam.

"Axel..." Irwin said over to me, his one eye narrowing down the barrel of his gun as the five Xenomorphs began to advance on us again.

But I couldn't take my eyes away from it! The building machine had folded the weapon into its compact form, making it look like a compact Master shotgun, but slightly larger and with more metallic platings along the barrel casing.  
Three red lines lit up along both of the casing's sides, casting out an erie red glow to mix with the bright white coming from within the compartment. The entire gun itself was a dark grey, mixed with a large amount of deep black metal taken from the black casing of the three guns that had been used in its construction.  
I felt a look of awed wonder stretch across my face as I stared at it, my attention completely taken away from the Aliens coming closer towards me and my comrades.

"Axel..." came Bruce's voice from down near my knee, he too was now pointing his Carniflex at the creatures while he kept his hand pressured against his wounded chest.

Using my free hand, I reached in and grabbed my Super Rifle (as I later came to call it) from the machine's metal claws that held it in place. It felt slightly heavier than both the shotgun and the rifle that I had just used earlier, but that was understandable since it was carrying three Master weapons combined into one sleek casing.

_"AXEL!"_ Both Irwin and Bruce shouted at me at the same time, the additional hissing of the Xenos snapping me out of my wonderment.

_'Guess there's no time for a Mind Mending session...'_ I thought as I flicked one of the small black buttons I had installed along the casing's side. With a quick series of metallic snaps, the weapon's black plating drew back and unfolded, causing the frame to elongate and grow twice its original size. As this happened a large trigger and handle grip jutted out near my right hand, while at the same time three silver barrels placed close together extended out from the end of the frame.

The leading Xeno drew both its claws back and charged towards us, ducking down low to avoid the rounds being fired from both Irwin and Bruce as they tried to stop it. With immediate reflexes I spun around with my newly activated triple barrel shotgun held by my waist, the thin red lights along the casing glowing brighter as my finger clamped down on the trigger.

A low humming sound emmited from the inside of the weapon, sending forth a deep golden glow from within all three barrels, one that grew brighter and brighter until a loud discharge rang out. All of this happened within the blink of an eye.  
The Xenomorph had come up right behind me, just a few inches out of arm's reach. But once it had noticed the glowing light coming from the three barrels, it screamed in rage and stumbled backwards in mid charge. The discharge that shot out of the gun was a bright flaming barrage of thermal rounds that spattered outwards as soon as they left their barrels, a blinding golden flare of light accompanying them as they shredded into the creature standing in front of me, briefly illuminating the area around us for a moment.

The Alien's entire upper body was blasted apart, the force of the hit sending its decimated carcass flying backwards past the other four creatures with a spray of acid blood trailing behind it. As it smashed into the counter ahead of us, the remaining Xenos screamed at the sight of their sibling's mangled body, flicking their tails and claws around themselves angrily as they hissed back and forth between each other. They turned back to face us but did not dare advance any further, for fear of getting the exact same treatment.

I on the other hand was reeling from the power of the recoil on this thing (if you've ever had the un-fortunate pleasure of getting kicked in the side by a full grown stallion, you'll have some idea of the kind of force this weapon has when you accidentally fire all three barrels at once...)

The advanced suit of armour I was wearing had been able to lessen the force behind the blast, but even then I still found myself staggering backwards to lean against the counter behind me, wide eyed as I stared at the three smoking barrels.

_"Holy shit..."_ Bruce, Irwin, and I said in unison, all of us stunned by the weapon's awesome display of power.

However that awe was to be short lived, for immediately after I had killed the Xenomorph, the Super rifle's deep sounding overheat alarm had begun beeping. And since the remaining creatures standing in front of us had witnessed what that alarm signified during the fire-fight, they were now hissing rapidly and had begun to inch forward across the carpet, testing to see if I would fire my weapon again.  
"What good did that do us, it just overheated like the others!" Bruce growled in pain as he turned his attention back to the Aliens.

"Heat...heat, that last one stumbled backwards because it was afraid of the gun..." I began saying to myself as I looked back at the smoking barrels.  
_'It was afraid because the barrels looked...like they were on fire. They weren't afraid of fire in the movies, but they _were_ in the video games...heat and fire, how does that help us?'_ I thought again as I eyed the four advancing Xenos, noticing how all of them were now grouped together side by side, advancing on us in a horizontal line.

"A single blast could take them out now...a single blast of heat...and _fire_, THATS IT!" I nearly shouted as I snapped my fingers, an idea suddenly coming to my head.

"You got a plan?" Irwin asked over to me, flicking his head back and forth between the Xenos and me as they closed to within two meters of us. I didn't answer him, I quickly tapped the black button on the side of my Super rifle, causing the dark metal casing to fold back into its compact form. As this happened I quickly reached back and attached it to the small clips hanging from my suit's snake-scale plating along my back near my right shoulder.  
"Haxon! Where's my Inferno grenade?" I demanded, keeping my Phalanx at the ready as my eyes began darting back and forth towards the counters, desperate to find where it gotten to during the fight.

_"Directly five meters to your right near the acid eaten counter, but Mr. Sorenson, you can't _seriously_ be thinking of using an Inferno grenade within two meters of yourself? All of us will immediatley be vaporized along with the creatures!"_ Haxon's crisp voice commanded through my ear-piece, his tone reminding me of the second-last captain that had led my division during its tour of Afghanistan, to which I had had the ill fortune of dis-obeying a direct order from while on a high risk mission against the Taliban.  
As I listened to his directions, I spotted the round silver disk lying on the carpet floor right where the A.I. had said it would be.

"There are two things you guys need to know about me. One is that I always challenge those kinds of risks..." I began sharply as I de-activated and clipped the Phalanx to my belt. The Xenomorphs stopped in their tracks at this sudden odd behaviour, hissing erratically as they looked at each other. I smiled evily at their reactions, their confusion only ensuring that my plan would work.  
"And two..." I began, snapping out my right hand with the palm open.

Right away I could feel the ring's power, even if I could only glimpse its silver light through the near seamless threading of my gloves. I directed my mind to focus on the Inferno grenade, and almost immeditaley it sprung up from the floor, flying across the distance between me and it before spinning into my outstretched hand.

Both Irwin and Bruce's eyes went wide as I caught the device and mashed my thumb against the circular button in the center, clearly not expecting my sudden display of telekinesis.  
"How the hell did you..." Irwin began, but I cut him off as I announced to them and Haxon what I had hoped could have been avoided.

_"I'M NOT FROM THIS GALAXY!"_ my voice boomed as I drew my arm back and pitched the grenade at one of the Xenos.

The grenade had started to emit a sharp beeping sound after I had activated it, and as it stuck to the body of the creature I had thrown it at, the red lights on both sides began to flash rapidly. All four of the Xenos began to hiss and scream at us, while the one the grenade had stuck to began to thrash its claws against its chest, desperate to pry the device off.  
Before anyone could say a word, I spun around and grabbed Bruce by the torn folds of his business suit, using every muscle I could to quickly lift the astonished Turian up from the floor and throw him harshly over the top of the counter, causing him to exclaim a loud 'OOF!' as he landed behind it like a discarded sack of rocks.

"Get to cover!" I shouted over to Irwin as I quickly vaulted over top of the counter, coming to a landing next to Bruce who lay wheezing on his back.  
"No argument from _me_ mate, so long crittars!" Irwin said as he snapped off a mock salute to the raging Xenomorphs before turning and diving head first over top of the counter's polished surface. As he landed next to us on his stomach, I threw myself ontop of Bruce, using my body to shield him from the impending explosion.

And then it happened.

I could barely hear the Xenos' death screams as the grenade went off, the deafening sound of it causing us to cover our ears and press ourselves as low to the floor as we could. Streaks of fire, twisted metal, and charred Alien limbs flew everywhere, followed by an incredible shockwave that blasted outward, tearing all three of the counters apart. More smaller explosions followed as many electrical components caught in the blast were ripped to pieces, sending more fire and sparks whizzing over our heads. I could feel hot shrapenel crisscrossing over my back as the counter right behind us was blown apart, sending the shards of superheated metal shooting outwards, stabbing into the floor or walls.

After a few more seconds of this the chaos finally died down.

I tentatively lifted my head up from the floor, coughing several times from the thick swirls of brown smoke that now hung in the air. As I did I could feel small pieces of glass and metal jingle off of my back, most of my entire backside and hair was now covered in a layer of carbon fragments and debris. All around us hunks of metal and frayed cables lay about, with dozens of small fires illuminating the room almost as brightly as the store's lights had before the blackout. As I lifted myself up from Bruce's body, I looked down at myself and could see most of my armoured chest-plate had now become smeared with the Turian's blue blood.

Bruce himself had his eyes closed, his face covered in black streak marks where I had been unable to cover him.  
"Bruce? _Bruce_!" I asked as I quickly lifted myself off and got onto my knees next to him, shaking his shoulders furiously to wake him up. The Turian groaned as he opened one eye, casting a glaring pupil up at me.

"_You're not from this galaxy_?" he stated, as if already convinced that I was now insane.

Before I could utter a word in my defense, a loud creeking sound came just off to the side. As we both looked over to it, we could see Irwin laying on his back lifting a large piece of jagged metal off of his chest. As he cast it to the side, I could make out through the swirling smoke that his white dress shirt was riddled with black streaks and torn in several places, the store owner's forearms had recieved several scratches that were leaking thin streams of blood onto his sleaves as well.

"Actually Bruce, now that I've heard it from him, it_ does_ explain a lot..." stated the Australian as he lay with his hands pressed against his forehead, coughing between words as he began sucking in the smoke floating around him.

I coughed again too as I helped Bruce stand up to his feet.  
"I can explain later..." I said to the both of them as I sat Bruce down on one of the rings steps before crossing over to help Irwin. With the power still out and most of the electrical equipment having been destroyed in the grenade's blast, there were no ventilation systems that could get rid of the thickening smoke.

If we didn't find a way to get rid of it soon, or find another exit out of the store, we were going to suffocate in the next few minutes!

"Is there another way out of here, or any way to clear out the smoke?" I asked Irwin as I pulled him up to his feet, coughing again as I spoke. Now my throat was beginning to get sore, the smoke inhalation making it hard for me even to speak. Irwin shook his head as he looked at all the carnage surrounding us, particularly at the destroyed remains of the three counters that had contained the controls for most of his equipment.  
"Without power, and without my control circuits, there's really nothing we can do with the tech in here."

"Well, considering that we've already damaged everything, there is one way to get out of here..." Bruce spoke up after a small coughing fit. As both Irwin and I turned to him, the Turian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver disk. He tossed it over to me, and after catching it I was confused to see what it was. It was another Inferno grenade.  
"How does this help us?" I asked him.

_"There is a narrow alleyway that runs along the right side wall of the store. If you were to use this grenade to blast a hole through the indicated area, you'd have your exit and a way for the smoke to clear out of the room,"_ came Haxon's voice.

After taking a moment to look over at the wall he'd indicated, I shrugged and pressed my thumb against the center button, drawing my arm back and flinging the device across the room like I was skipping a stone on a pond.

Right away both Bruce and Irwin gawked at me as if I had just set off a self destruct sequence!

"I didn't mean do it right _now_!" shouted the Turian as he snapped his head back and forth between me and the grenade as it stuck to the wall, its sharp beeping sound and flashing red lights beginning to pick up in speed and pitch.  
"So tell us _Mr. Galaxy Hopper_, with the clock on our lives now ticking, how are we gonna shield ourselves from that?" Irwin barked as he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him, pointing over to the device that was now less than a minute away from exploding.

"Take a look around you, the last grenade destroyed everything that could have given us proper cover from a blast like that. That just leaves us with one option..." I said.  
"Which is _what_ exactly?" he demanded. Reaching down to my belt, I quickly pressed the black button that Irwin had shown me when he had first revealed the suit. The armour's personal shields activated in a pixelled haze, flashing briefly in a cone around me before dissipating.

"Get behind me," I ordered to him, jabbing my thumb in the said direction. Irwin's eye widened as he dropped his hand from my arm.  
"_Axel_..." he began, but I cut him off.

"You said these shields were strong enough to obsorb the blast from a frag grenade, so they should be able to withstand an Inferno," I said as I turned back to face the rapidly beeping grenade.  
"Maybe, but I don't know for sure mate, I never tried it against one of those..." Irwin insisted. I shrugged again as I widened my stance, raising my arms slightly incase any large pieces of debris would come shooting at me in the wake of the impending explosion.  
"Well then this will be an excellent field test, now won't it..." I began before turning my head towards the Turian store keeper still sitting on the ring steps.

"Bruce, are you going to sit there until that grenade blows? Hurry up and get behind me!" I shouted, barking at him in the same tone that I would usually use to get un-seasoned Army Privates into paying better attention. With some quick help from Irwin, Bruce painfully scrambled over towards me, both he and his Australian employer huddling directly behind my back.

"You are a _very_ strange man," Bruce remarked from behind me, a small chuckle following from all three of us as we observed this new predicament we had found ourselves in.  
"Hey, at least its me and not you standing in front of a grenade..." I said back to him. The Inferno was now seconds away from exploding, causing all three of us to remain in a tense rigid stance, awaiting the final beep of the alarm.

"You know mates...if we don't make it through this, I just wanted to say..." began Irwin, his tone conveying what could be his final words in a very heart felt way. But before he could finish, the grenade's beeping alarm stopped, and the flashing lights shone a bright scarlet red.

"Too late..." I simply said as the grenade went off, blasting apart the wall and sending a raging column of fire shooting straight at us.

* * *

The Queen loomed over the group like a giant snake, quietly hissing as she bobbed her head back and forth, regarded each of them with a mixture of curiousity and contempt. Her massive tear-drop shaped head nearly took up Alec's entire field of vision as she brought her eyeless, slime covered face to within a foot of his own. Everyone except for Jango, Yoda, and Verrak backed away a few feet, fearing what might happen next if they stayed too close. Alec held his ground as he stared, un-flinching, straight back at the slime dripping monstrosity swaying back and forth before his eyes.

_"Hey? How's it going?"_ he asked in a deep smooth voice as he cocked an eyebrow, trying hard not to burst out laughing as he made his best attempt to appear suave and debonair.

The Queen hissed loudly as she snapped her head closer to him, nearly pressing her jet black skin against the tip of his noise! This caused everyone to jump back this time, all of them pointing their weapons at the Matriarch.  
Alec however had remained completely still, only rotating his eyes to look at the creature as she continued to examine him. His short blonde hair parted several times as she blew cold blasts of air against him, sniffing him through her thin slit nostrils.

Suddenly she hissed again, pulling away from him as if she had just caught a wiff of something foul. But it wasn't that, it was more that the Guardian had an odd sent about him that the Queen had never smelt before.

It was almost as if she could sense something different in Alec, as if she knew that he wasn't completely human.

"Hey lady! I didn't wanna say anything, but you don't smell that great either!" Alec shot up at the creature, putting on the act of being insulted. The Queen snarled at him, swishing her tail from side to side behind her.

However, whatever curiousity that had been keeping the Matriarch from attacking soon wore off as she raised her head to look around the Corridor. At the sight of her children's bodies strewn out across the battlefield, the Queen's black lips began to quiver back even higher than they had been. Her claws began to visibly tense as she stood up to her full height, turning her head back to Alec with a look of utter hatred on her features.  
"Okay, _bad_ joke..." Alec muttered as he gripped either end of the Combi-Stick even tighter, holding it diagnally across his chest in readiness.

With a single jerk of her head, the Queen's jaws un-hinged as she let out a long ear-splitting scream, one that caused most of the C-Sec agents to grab their ears in pain. Even Yoda and Alec winced at the noise.

"Weapons on full! Open fire!" shouted Verrak over the sound of the screech. All of his agents either activated the highest settings on their guns or flared their Biotics. However it soon became apparent to everyone that the Queen was far craftier than any of her children had been.  
Before anyone could make their attack on her, she had been able to bend down, tear her sharp nails into the metal of the polished flooring undernearth them, and had now sent a very large junk of jagged debris shooting towards the group in front of her!

Jango immediately activated his jet-pack, its twin thrusters blasting out bright blue flame as they propelled him towards the ceiling out of harms way. Yoda was able to front flip over top of the flying debris while Alec simply dived head-first to the ground, allowing it to pass over of him. The small group of agents however, including Sgt. Vakarian, weren't so lucky.

Verrak grunted painfully as he tumbled to the gound, a deep bleeding slash going across the top of his left thigh, a sharp edge of the debris having been able to cut through his armour plates as the rest of it smashed into his agents, knocking them all to the ground too. As the sargeant clamped a hand onto his leg, he looked up to see Yoda land in a battle ready crouch next to Alec, while the Guardian stabbed one of the ends of his spear into the floor to help him stand up back on his feet. "Feisty one ain't she?" Alec asked down to Yoda with a grin, before both of them raised their weapons and charged the Matriarch side by side.

A fierce clash ensued with the Queen charging across the torn flooring to meet the duo head on.

With blurred movements, Alec and Yoda fought against a savage barrage of hacks and slashes from the Queen's claws, tail, and feet. One after the other Alec parried and slashed away each attack with the ends of his spear, twirling it around his body or thrusting it towards the Queen whenever he could find an opening. Yoda dodged and flipped, sidestepping and weaving around her attacks as he tried to get closer.

But try as he may, his lightsaber wasn't able to land a single critical hit, the only things he succeeded in making were small glances or cuts against her tail or legs, never anything that could do any real damage. The Queen's speed was incredible. Despite her enormous size she was always able to dodge or pull her limbs away from the glowing green blade as it came near to her. Around and 'round these three encircled each other, remaining in the same spot they had begun dueling but moving back and forth in a vicious ring of battle.

As this happened, the exposed circuitry and wires that had been underneath the floor when the Queen had ripped into it were now getting severed and trampled upon as her large feet continued to dodge back and forth. Sparks and very small explosions flashed underneath the three, sending thickening swirls of grey smoke circling around them as they continued to fight.

If it hadn't been a life or death situation at the moment, Alec would have wanted to get this action on camera and send it in for a movie award!

But after several minutes of this epic battle, and a particularly nasty gash on her leg thanks to Yoda expertly sliding underneath her, the Queen decided to pull a dirty move. As Alec held the Predator's spear crossed behind his back with one hand, he blew out a single winded breath before charging back into the fray, intent on unleashing a vicious spinning attack.

Just as he came within striking distance, the Queen made a sweeping slash with one of her claws.

But she wasn't slashing at Alec. Instead, her claws swept low to the exposed wiring underneath her, slicing through them and causing a large sequence of sparks and electrical discharges to lash out for a few seconds. That wasn't all she had hit however, for her claws had also severed through a thin gas pipe that ran underneath the wires, sending a large spout of green fuel shooting up out of the floor.

With the combination of sparks and liquid fuel, a raging column of orange and yellow flame exploded up from the pipe, just as Alec charged over it!  
"ARRRGH!" Alec screamed in pain, stumbling backwards as he held onto his face with his free hand, the explosion having caught him full on in the front. The fabric of his SS uniform caught fire, large plums of flame snaking up his arms and legs and under the scale plating of his samurai armour.  
The Queen did not recoil from the spewing flames like her children would, in fact she hissed with delight at the success of her work. With one quick motion, the Matriarch snapped her leg through the spout of flame and struck the Guardian straight in the chest, sending the blazing Alec flying backwards with a stream of smoke trailing behind him.

Alec cried out as his back slammed against a support beam, sending him crumbling to his hands and knees next to Verrak Vakarian. The sargeant was wide eyed as he crawled back a few feet, un-able to say anything as the Guardian's burning body began to glow a bright silver, his powers causing the flame that engulfed him to vanish, and his clothes and armour to mend themselves back to their previous state.  
As the silver glow faded and the last swirls of smoke whisked away, the newly healed Alec angrily stabbed one end of his spear into the floor to help keep himself from falling forward, lifting himself onto one knee as he steadied.

"Okay..._now_ I'm angry," Alec said to himself in a venomous tone as he raised his head to look over at the Queen.

The Matriarch herself was staring at Alec through the gushing spout of flame, her glistening fangs bared almost in a wicked grin. But then suddenly, the sound of Yoda roaring out filled the air around them. Whipping her head around, the Queen screamed as the Jedi came flying through the air towards her face. With that same incredible speed, the Queen began to pull her giant head backwards, hoping to do a Matrix like dodge to avoid the humming blade that was slicing towards her.  
But this time the Master Jedi had been anticipating her reaction, timing his honed reflexes to counter hers.

With his blade set and his timing perfect, Yoda made a lightning quick sweep with his right hand, bringing his lightsaber in a 180 degree arch from his left shoulder all the way across his chest. It wasn't as damaging as he had wanted it, but the tip of his sword was able to slice across the right side of the Queen's eyeless, slime covered face. The creature screamed in pain as she staggered from the hit, while Yoda landed in a harsh roll over the exposed wires that were still shooting off sparks with each movement of the Queen's feet.

However, the instant the Jedi spun around he had to duck down low to avoid the Queen's left forearm that came swinging at him. Even as quick as the aged Master was, the Queen proved to be the quicker, delivering a smashing uppercut to Yoda's chin with her right fist which had come in following her arm.

Yoda grunted as he was sent flying backwards into the air, landing in a rough somersault as he smashed onto the floor, rolling to stop in a heap next to Alec's side.

"You alright?" the Guardian asked as he helped the Jedi into a sitting position, handing him his lightsaber hilt that had rolled away after he had hit the ground. Off to the side the Queen was still screeching in pain as she held the side of her head, obviously the damage done by Yoda's lightsaber had been greater than they had first thought.  
"Great speed and strength she possesses, more so than any of the other Xenomorphs. Change our tactics we will have to, if we wish to have any hope of defeating her," Yoda stated as he accepted the hilt, his gaze still fixed over on the Queen.

Suddenly the Matriarch turned back towards them, snarling madly as she began stepping around the gushing fountain of fire still coming out of the gas pipe. However, as she began to step past the glowing orange flames, loud pistol shots began to ring throughout the area around them. Quickly turning their heads toward the source, Yoda and Alec could see Sgt. Vakarian limping towards the Queen, his left hand clamped down onto his bleeding thigh while his right continued to fire round after round out of his Karpov pistol.

"No! _Here!_ Come over here!" shouted Verrak as he came to stand in front of his group of unconscious agents that remained pinned under the large piece of debris that the Matriarch had thrown at them.  
"Verrak, what are you doing?" Alec shouted over to him, as he used the Predator spear to help him stand.

"I'm taking some of the heat off you!" he said over to the two as he fired off several more rounds. The Queen's hyde was far tougher than the other Xenomorphs, resulting in each shot from Verrak's pistol mearly sinking a few millimeters into her leathery skin, or simply bouncing off entirely. After seeing this for himself, Verrak paused in his barrage, giving his pistol a chance to cool down.  
The Queen had now placed her full attention on the Turian, her chest and arms emmiting small whisps of smoke from several thermal rounds that had at least stayed in her. As she drew her arms back, readying herself to charge forward and rip Verrak to shreds, loud blaster shots began to explode all around her.

The Queen snapped her head up towards the ceiling with a hiss, dodging several more blasts that were directed at her.

"Up here!" shouted Jango's accented voice as he manipulated his jet-pack to hover over the other three. As Jango continued to fire blast after blast from his single pistol, more of the exposed circuitry that the Queen was standing on began to explode, igniting more fuel and causing more gas pipes to break open. Suddenly great orchards of fire began to errupt all around her legs and body, the spreading flame causing even her to shriek in fear as she began to raise her claws towards her head, guarding herself from the erruptions that struck at her from all sides.

As this happened Verrak began to open fire on her again, this time holding his weapon with both hands as he remained in place. Round after round sunk into her chest, none of them truly hurting her, but succeeding in making her jerk backwards farther and farther into the growing forest of fire surrounding her. The Queen raised herself to her full height, screaming a scream so loud that it nearly shook the entire Corridor as she thrashed her limbs all about her, the flames licking away at her body, their flickering tendrils rising higher and higher until only her head and arms were visible.

"Have I died and gone to hell?" Alec asked down to Yoda in bewilderment, remarking upon the deadly scene in front of them. Coupled with the screaming shrieks of the Queen and the piercing orange glow that was stretching out from the fires to illuminate most of the Corridor, it was really beginning to bear a striking resemblence to _Dante's Inferno!_

Leaving the Predator Combi-Stick stabbed into the floor, Alec quickly drew Jango's second blaster pistol that he still had tucked under his belt and began firing his own barrage at the creature. With Alec's blasts added to the shots being fired from both Jango and Verrak, the Queen gave out one last horrible cry as she fell to the ground, more fiery explosions errupting around her as the columns of gas fueled flame comsumed her body, blocking it from sight.

As they stopped firing, a stunned silence fell over everyone. Even the dozens of injured agents that had been watching from farther behind were struck speechless by what had just happened.

"Did we just win?" Alec asked tentatively as he lowered his pistol. Verrak nodded slowly, as if un-able to believe it himself, keeping his gaze fixed on the raging barricade of fire in front of him.

But, as if right on que, a vicious hiss rang out from the very heart of the inferno. Suddenly the sound of electrical sparks and breaking metal came, followed by a three meter long piece of sparking cable being hurled out of the fire, spinning end over head as it flew straight at Verrak!

The Turian squad leader tried to dive out of the way, but the sparking cable came in too fast, smashing against him and semi-wrapping around his torso as he was thrown backwards several feet. The sargeant shouted out in pain as the last currents of electricity within the cable flowing into him, electrocuting him for a few seconds before subsiding.

Bringing his weapon back up in readiness, Alec had to shake his head in disbelief at what he was seeing. The Queen rose back up from the center of the flames, smoke billowing up around her and out through her mouth as she screamed in rage, clearly not as affected by the fire as they had hoped. Turning her head up towards Jango, she hissed venomously at the hovering Mandalorian as he still pointed his weapon down at her.

"Take your best shot..." Jango stated. The Queen sneered at this, before turning around and digging her claws into another section of the flame drenched flooring, using her immense strength to tear another large piece from the ground. The Matriarch shouted in anger as she heaved upwards and twisted the metal, causing a wave of sparks and small explosions to go off underneath her, igniting more gas and allowing the walls of fire to spread even further.  
"Uh oh," Jango said as his pistol arm faultered, amazed at the sheer power within the Queen as she heaved the massive piece of debris over her head.

"Jango, MOVE!" Alec shouted as he began firing off his blaster, trying to distract the Xenomorph from what she was about to do. But it was of no use, the Queen drew her arms to one side and hurled the piece of debris towards the ceiling like a discus.

"Damn!" Jango cursed as he quickly manouvered his jet-pack to dodge out of the path of the spinning metal, flying backwards as the debris came smashing into the ceiling less than a foot away from his head! Sparks and chunks of the ceiling exploded out in every direction as the debris slashed into the ceiling's support beams, becoming lodged into the structure. The rest of the beams however exploded as well, several of them breaking off from the ceiling and raining down towards the bounty hunter!

Flying from side to side, Jango put every ounce of his skill into dodging the falling beams, spinning or diving through the air as each one fell past. But just as he was about to avoid the final beam, a small shard of metal debris fell towards him and bounced off of his broken collar bone. Jango yelled out as he was hit by fresh waves of aching pain, causing him to jerk to the side, straight back into the path of the falling beam!

"AARRGH!" shouted Jango as the beam struck him, sending him careering down to the ground, the thick metal beam landing ontop of his lower half, pinning him to the floor. Several agents rushed over to the bounty hunter's side, trying the best they could to heave the piece of debris off of him.

Looking between the grounded Jango, and the injured Verrak who was still trying to un-tangle himself from the torn cable hooked around his body, Alec made a snap decision.

"Yoda, go and help Jango, I'll take the Queen on alone..." the Guardian said as he slid Jango's blaster back into his belt. The Jedi cocked an eyebrow, his head turning between Alec and the snarling Matriarch as she remained poised within her new domain of fire, watching intently to see if anyone would dare come and challenge her again.

"What plan have do you Alec?" Yoda asked as he clipped his lightsaber hilt to his belt. Alec gave a wide grin as he walked away from the Master, crossing over until he stood in the center of the Corridor directly in front of the Queen and the gysers of flame shooting up around her. Yoda looked confused, seeing as how Alec had left the Predator spear where he had stabbed into the metal, choosing to face the Queen bare handed. Despite this fact however, Alec's look of mad joy was still etched on his face as he got in a battle ready stance.

"You said that to defeat her, we had to change our tactics. If she wants to use strength and speed against us, then I'll use some strength and speed of my _own_!" Alec said over to his little green companion.

Suddenly the Guardian's limbs began to grow in size, his body becoming surrounded by a silver aura as huge patches of dark gray fur began to sprout all over his body, replacing his uniform and armour as they vanished.

Yoda was awe struck, even after having already seen him take the form of a giant gorilla back in the Presidium park, this creature he was transforming into was something the Master had never imagined before.

Alec continued to grow in size until he was as large, if not larger than the Queen herself. Sharp, solid black horns extended from either side of his newly enlarged head, slightly curving down and pointing forwards like bull's horns. Enormous muscles bulged from his fur covered chest and arms, his legs becoming almost goat like as they were covered in shaggy gray hairs. His feet transformed into large hooves, and short black claws extended from the fingers of his enormous hands. His mouth and nose extended into a bull's snout, and a thick mane of black hair emerged on the top of his head, traveling down the center of his neck and back.

Everyone within the Corridor was now watching this transformation, all of them stunned by either awe or fear. Yoda couldn't help but smile as the newly formed Alec drew himself to his full height, which did happen to be a few inches taller than the Queen. The Xenomorph was screaming with rage at this sudden turn of events, aggressively snapping her jaws and cracking her tail as she looked up at the creature before her. Alec glared at the Matriarch with his new beady black eyes before lunging his head towards her, opening his mouth and roaring out a sound so loud it caused everyone to stumble backwards in fright.

Alec's roar sounded like a cross between a farm animal and a savage beast, but it was intimidating enough to make even the Queen retreat a step within her fiery nest.

As this happened, Yoda had begun to make his way towards Jango and the other agents, passing by an astonished Verrak as the sargeant sat to watch the conflict between the two creatures unfold, having finally gotten rid of the torn cable.

"How the hell did he do that?" the squad leader asked as he grabbed Yoda by the arm. The old Master smiled as he gripped Vakarian by the shoulder.  
"Quite a tale to tell your children it will be."

_'It's been a while since I tried this one...'_ thought Alec as he adjusted to the feel of his new hooved feet. The form that the Guardian had chosen was indeed an ancient creature, first encountered by the Ring Guardians when one of Alec's breatheren had been assigned to protect one of the ring's previous Bearers in Ancient Greece, a hero by the name of Theseus.  
This creature, which Theseus and his ring Guardian had encountered while traveling through the Labyrinth, had been able to nearly bring down the entire maze with its incredible strength, and evade even the most skilled tracker with its quickness.

Alec had tranformed himself into the fearsome _Minotaur_!

"So, _your Majesty_, how do you wanna do this?" Alec asked the Queen mockingly in his new deep voice, uttering her title in a vile tone. The Xenomorph shrieked as she dashed towards him, the billowing jets of flame swirling around her as she passed through them, her claws slashing and her tail swaying back and forth behind her.  
Alec grinned as he bowed his head so that his sharp bull horns pointed directly at her.

"I was kinda hoping for that, _MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_ the Guardian said as he kicked up one of his legs and charged the Queen head on, letting his insane laughter ring loudly throughout the Corridor as he clashed one on one with the Matriarch of the Xenomorphs.  
(And that is how Alec officially became _The Badass of the Universe_.)

With a mighty crash that shuddered the entire structure of the Corridor around them, these two raging forces of nature smashed directly into each other amid the forest of fire. Both of them hissed, roared, and screamed as they slashed and hacked at the other, head-butting and stabbing, kicking and punching. They fought with the savagery of two Alpha lions, locking heads and shoulders with each other as they spun around and around, throwing each of them back and forth, from side to side, crushing and breaking anything unfortunate enough to be in their way. More explosions and blazing flames shot up around them as they destroyed more components.

Eventually they locked hands with each other, both of them holding the other by their claws as they smashed their foreheads together, straining back and forth with teeth and fangs bared as they tried to shove the other away.  
"What're you gonna do now?" mocked the Minotaur-Alec through clenched teeth as his bulging muscles strained against the Queen's super strength. If she had had eyes, the two of them would be have been glaring straight into each other's faces amidst the flames that nearly rose up between them.

In answer to Alec's question, the Queen jerked her body to the side, sending the tip of her large plated tail spearing forth and impaling the great Minotaur through the gut!

Alec threw his head back and howled in pain, the Matriarch's tail driving deeper through his stomach as she screamed with evil joy. Farther back down the Corridor, both Yoda and Jango looked at each other in shock, believing for sure that not even the powerful Alec could survive an injury like that.

But immediately afterwards, Alec's scream of pain turned into a roar of anger as he pulled his head back to face the Xeno, his eyes now shining a burning bright silver!  
_"YOU DAMN BITCH!"_ With one diagnal jerk of his head, Alec brought his right curved horn slicing across the left side of the Queen's face, giving her a second facial injury that was nearly identical to the one Yoda had inflicted upon her earlier in the battle. The Queen screamed as she let go of Alec's hands, holding onto her face as it began to spew acid blood.

With the success of that painful distraction, Alec raised both of his mighy fists and slammed them down onto the tail still protruding from his stomach. A sickening crunch sounded out as the bones in the tail snapped apart like kindling, causing the Queen's screams to reach new heights as she quickly pulled the broken limb out of Alec's torso.

Before she could attack again, and with his stomach healing automatically, Alec balled his huge first and delivered a devastating punch into the injury he had just inflicted. The Queen staggered under the force of the blow, reeling from the pain that her new wound was causing her. But Alec didn't stop there, he delivered another blow with his other fist, causing her to stagger backwards.

Roaring out as he advanced on her, Alec began throwing punch after punch into the Queen's head! Left, right, left, right, again and again he struck at her, causing her to stagger farther and farther back through the flames. The Matriarch tried to block his attacks, raising her arms in defense or attempting to slash at him with her claws. But it was no use, Alec just kept on coming, delivering blow after blow as he pressed forward. Finally Alec landed a strike so strong that it was able to knock the Queen spinning to the ground, causing her to scream and crawl forward as she landed ontop of several walls of flame that had been billowing behind her.

But the fight didn't end there, for as she lay on her front, holding onto her battered head and sections of her burnt body, Alec stormed up and grabbed her by the middle of her crooked broken tail. The Queen screamed as she spun around on her side, slashing up at Alec. The Guardian simply grabbed her tail with both hands and heaved to the side, swinging the hissing Queen up from the floor and into the air, making her large head crash straight through a metal support column nearby!

Using the momentum he was gaining from the swing, Alec started to rotate in a circle, using the same tactic that the Predator Leader had used in the movie _AVP_ as he deliberately began smashing the Matriarch's head through column after column! Metal fragments sprayed everywhere as the Queen's cranium crashed through them, causing more cuts and gashes to form on her head and torso, sending acid blood spewing all around the two combatants.

After cracking through one more column, Alec rotated one last time before releasing his hold on the tail, flinging the Queen head first into the solid wall of a store across from him!

Hissing madly from the stinging cuts all along her body as she slid to the floor in a heap, the Matriarch pulled herself up onto one knee with her back leaning against the wall. Alec stood before her amidst the jets of fire that still swirled around them, breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight. Suddenly he began to chuckle evily as he made a beckoning motion with his hand.

"Come on..." he taunted, as a grin was added to his chuckles.

Immediately the Queen bared her teeth violently, tearing one of her claws into the metal flooring beside her and throwing several fragments directly towards Alec's face!

Alec shouted out in annoyance as he knocked the fragments aside with a swipe of his hand, some of the smaller ones catching him near the eyes.  
"Why you un-sporting little!..." began Alec angrily as he shook his head to clear his vision. Only to have it filled up again with the Queen's screeching mouth!

In his blinded state, the Xenomorph had launched herself up from the floor and had now charged into the Guardian, her out-stretched arms allowing her to stab her long claws into Alec's large shoulders and shove the great Minotaur backwards!

The Queen's momentum and strength were enough to send Alec tumbling, the back of his thick furry neck smashing through a section of the catwalk that ran behind him. The catwalk groaned loudly in protest, sparks and metal shooting everywhere as both he and the Queen crashed through it, both of them now stabbing their claws into each-other's shoulders as Alec began to fight back.

* * *

Only several meters away from this epic duel, the Predator and the last remaining adolescent Xenomorph continued to wage their own battle back and forth across the catwalk. Even after the Queen had revealed herself several minutes ago, this one remaining Xeno had still fought savagely for its very life. This had been the hardest battle the Predator had fought in many decades, despite having inflicted massive injury to the creature's torso and arms. Even with all of his years of experience, this one young Xenomorph had been able evade the Predator's defenses and land several well placed attacks of its own, nicking him across his own arms or legs, and taking extra advantage of the injury to his shoulder.

But now, as the Predator dodged a wide swipe from the Xeno's claws, a powerful shudder ran throughout the walk as the Shapeshifter and the Queen-Mother of the Great Serpents smashed through farther up ahead of him. As Alec's body effectively broke the catwalk in half, the vibrations from the sudden damage travelled down the length of walk towards the Predator and the Xenomorph, jarring loose bolts and fixtures that were keeping the walk attached to the ceiling, while also sending down a shower of flaming sparks as electrical components exploded.

Suddenly sections of the catwalk began to tear from their fixtures, causing pieces to rain down throughout the length of the Corridor. The Predator and Alien paused in their fight, jerking their heads all around themselves as the section of metal they were standing on began to buckle underneath them. Immediately the Hunter shoved the creature to the side as he dived towards the grated flooring, hooking his scaled fingers through the holes as the cables connecting to the walk's railings snapped apart, causing a crack to form and immediately brake near the melted hole that the Predator's Plasma Caster had caused.

Holding on as tight as he could, the metal section the Hunter was attached to swung down like a pendulum, swinging up and smashing against the underside of the surviving catwalk, the remaining cables farther up ahead somehow staying intact. As the Predator swung back and forth on the section of walkway, he raised his head to look up at the other section that had remained attached to the ceiling.

To his annoyance, the eyeless face of the final Xenomorph snarled down at him, the creature having been able to jump to the other section before his had broken. The Xeno reached out and grabbed onto the swinging metal, clawing its way towards him as fast as it could, both sets of jaws open and ready to snap! The Predator still had his set of wrist blades extended from his right gauntlet, which at the moment were smoking from the Xeno's acid blood that covered it. But just like his Combi-Stick, the blades were made of a hardened material designed to resist the burning effects of the Serpents' blood.

The Alien screamed as it lunged at the Hunter, letting go of the metal to allow itself to drop ontop of him, its inner set of jaws extending outwards to chomp straight through his face-mask. But the Yautja proved himself to be every bit the skilled warrior he was known for.  
Before the Xeno could slam into him, the Hunter dropped his right hand from the grated metal and swiped upwards. In the time span of half a second, both wrist blades managed to slice across the right side of the Alien's head as it fell past him, carving two deep gashes along the entire length of the creature's long curved skull. This made the creature instinctively jerk to the side, causing its inner jaws to miss the Hunter's head completely.

Both Predator and Xeno roared in pain as the creature tumbled down to the floor thirteen feet below them, its body having smacked into the Predator's wounded shoulder on the way down. Looking down over his bleeding shoulder, the Hunter could see the body of the last Xenomorph laying face down on the scorched flooring, a small pool of acid blood could be seen leaking out of the two gash marks on its head.

But then suddenly, the Alien moved!

Growling angrily as he enchanced the vision in his mask by several frames, the Hunter could see clearly that the injury he had inflicted along with the fall from the walk had not been enough to kill the creature. As the wounded Alien stood painfully to its feet and shrieked up at him, the Predator quickly retracted his wrist blades and flicked out the small barrel that extended from the underside of his gauntlet.

But instead of firing tranquilizers this time, the Hunter merely had to flex his wrist to fire out a whistling serrated dart head!

Just managing jerk its body to the side, the Xeno dodged the projectile, causing it to stab into the floor behind it. Casting one last hateful growl up at the Hunter, the Xenomorph turned and bolted towards the wall on the far side of the Corridor. As the Predator's dart shooter automatically reloaded, he enhanced his mask vision by another frame, tracking ahead of the fleeing Alien to see where it was going.

After adjusting his vision setting to block out the glare of a nearby emergency light, the Hunter could make out a very narrow alleyway running in between two Market stores, one of which was non other than 'Irwin's Weapon's and Antiques.'

As the Xeno bounded across the width of the Corridor on all fours, it flashed past many wounded agents still strewn across the floor amidst the dead bodies. Some of the lesser wounded had to dive out of the way to avoid getting run over as the Alien continued on its path.  
Right away the Predator activated the voco-recorder built into his face mask, cycling through a list of voice recordings he had begun taking ever since he had arrived on the Citadel. After a moment of searching, he selected and activated the most recent entry.

"All units, _PERMISSION TO OPEN FIRE_!" shouted out Verrak Vakarian's voice from the Predator's mask filter.

This sudden command from their superior caused several of the agents to look around in confusion, having not seen the sargeant actually turn and address them. A few others however, jumped at the sound of the command, rushing towards the fleeing Xenomorph before it could enter the alleyway

"Stop it before it escapes!" A Turian agent called to an Asari and a Human, as he charged at the Alien from the side firing a Kessler. But the creature wouldn't be hindered so easily.

As the Turian ran within striking distance, intending to shoot the Xeno at point blank range, it was able to easily dodge down low and deliver an upwards swipe into the agent's pistol hand. As the weapon was knocked into the air, the Xeno delivered a wicked strike into the Turian's throat followed by a vicious kick to his stomach, sending the agent crumbling to the ground in a fit of choking sputters.

That action barely slowed down the Xeno's flight as it continued on its way to the safe darkness of the alley!

Suddenly the Alien screamed as it dived out of the way to avoid a heavy Biotic slam sent from the hand of the Asari agent. As she ran to the entrance of the alleyway in the hope of blocking its path, the Xeno sprung up and rushed forward with all the speed its hind legs could muster, swiping upward with its right arm as it passed in front of her, the sharp spikes attached to its forearm slicing across the side of her chest.

As the Asari collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain, the Human agent jumped in front of the alleyway entrance, barring the Alien's path. With his assault rifle activated and ready, the agent roared out as he began firing from the hip, shooting out everything he had in an attempt to stop the creature. This only succeeded in making it angrier as it dodged from side to side, staying low to the ground as it closed the short distance between to two of them.

With a loud shriek of victory, knowing that safety was within reach, the Xeno sprang up on its hind legs and knocked the rifle out of the Human's grasp. The agent immediately lashed out with a haymaker puch, intending to catch the creature on the injured side of its head.

With a quick raising of its arm, the creature blocked the punch and snapped out its opposite hand towards him, wrapping its clawed fingers around the front of the agent's head!

The man's ensuing screams were muffled against the inside of the creature's slime covered palm as it lifted him up three feet off the ground. Grabbing onto its spiked forearm with both hands to keep his neck from snapping under his own weight, the Human's legs swung and kicked wildly as he struggled to free himself.

The Alien sneered in disgust as it began tightening its grip, causing the agent's screams to increase and his struggles to become more frantic as it mercilessly squeezed his head. Several small cracks could be heard as the Human's skull began to fracture in several places.

But suddenly the Xeno screamed in pain as its arm jerked forward, causing it to release its foe and allow the now unconscious agent to drop to the floor in a heap. A large gash had appeared on its left shoulder, sending acid blood trickling down its side. Spinning around, the Xeno shrieked at the sight of the swinging Predator pointing his wrist barrel down at it, the mechanism reloading for a second time after the Hunter had fired its previous dart, which had only been able to skin past the creature. Before he fired again, the Predator spun his head over to the sound of more weapons firing, as a four person squad of C-Sec agents came running towards the final Alien.

The Xeno gave the Predator one last parting screech before whirling around and climbing up onto the wall, scaling higher and higher as it dug its claws into the metal. The squad of agents comprised of a Salarian, a Turian, and two Asari. They continued to fire rounds or throw Biotic slams towards the creature, but all of them impacted harmlessly around it as it scurried up along the alleyway wall, vanishing into the darkness of the shadows and escaping.

As his wrist barrel retracted back into his gauntlet, the Predator growled in anger at his failure to stop the Serpent. Climbing his way back up to what was left of the catwalk, the Hunter bowed his head and made a silent vow to his ancestors that he would find that creature one day and finish it off.

* * *

After crashing through the catwalk, Alec could feel his back smash into the wall behind him as the Queen continued to shove forward. Despite his struggles, the Queen's painful grip on his shoulders tightened another notch as she pinned him against the wall. Alec bared his teeth as he strained against the Queen's grip, raising his firsts and smashing them down onto her shoulders repeatedly. Even as she struggled against the successive strikes, the Queen lunged her head forward and extended her large set of inner jaws!

Alec jerked his head to the side, narrowly dodging the slime spitting teeth. The Matriarch snarled as she retracted and extended them again! Alec jerked his head to the other side this time, avoiding the jaws again as they went snapping past his ear. The Queen retracted them and prepared for another attack, but to her surprise the Guardian suddenly wrapped his enormous hands around her throat, choking her before the inner jaws could extend again.

"_My_ turn!" Alec announced before smashing a vicious headbutt straight into the Queen's face. Staggering backwards slightly, the Xeno released her hold on Alec's shoulders. Immediately he swept both his arms out to either side, knocking her arms away from him before delivering a wide swiping uppercut straight into her chin. As the Queen staggered with her neck arched backwards from the power of the blow, Alec jumped up toward the ceiling and grabbed hold of one of the support beams.

Just before the Xeno could recover, the Guardian raised his legs and swung forward on the beam like a Chimpanzee, smashing both his hooved feet straight into her chest! The force of the hit sent her blasting backwards through the flames across the width of the floor, smashing her back into one of the few remaing columns that her head had not been bashed through. As she slid down to the floor, weezing in pain, a series of heavy stomps shuddered throughout the area as Alec charged towards her through the walls of fire. Launching himself into the air, the Minotaur roared out as he drew back one of his fists.

The Queen had a split second to dive out of the way before the great hairy beast landed, his first smashing through the column and causing a section of the ceiling to cave in around them. As sparks and debris fell past him, Alec turned in the direction the creature had fled to, searching through the fire and fresh wisps of smoke for any sign of her.

Suddenly a large slime covered claw whipped out through the flames, striking him across the face. The Minotaur briefly roared in pain as his head swung to the side.

As the Queen advanced through the swirling smoke and fire, Alec turned back to her with a look of pure hatred, the six long gash marks across his face glowing silver as they shrank and faded away. The Guardian's black eyes flashed bright silver for a second time as he bared his teeth.

"This ends _now_."

The Queen seemed to understand his venomous threat as she hissed and charged, drawing back one of her claws. But Alec was quicker, having grown sick and tired of this creature. Blocking her swipe with a swipe of his own, Alec lunged up right in front of the Matriarch and grabbed her throat in a vice grip. Screaming as Alec lifted her up into the air above him, the Queen stabbed her claws into his shoulder muscles for a second time and pulled herself closer to him, snapping her inner jaws out towards his forehead.

But instead of hitting him, Alec snapped up his hand and clamped his fingers around the snapping jaws, catching them almost exactly the same way he had done against the first Xenomorph he had fought back in the alleyway. The Queen began clawing and kicking, stomping her feet against Alec's chest as she strained to push away from him. The Guardian grunted as he staggered back a few paces, struggling against his squirming burden until he came to a stop several meters in front of the watching group of people.

The Queen continued to struggle, screeching and thrashing as she tried pulling her jaws out of Alec's hand. The Guardian's grip only tightened, the arm that held her by the throat continuing to push away while his other arm began to pull the snapping jaws closer and closer to him.

Finally, after a sickening tearing sound, followed by a tremendous gurgling scream of pain, Alec gave one final tug and ripped the entire inner set of jaws straight out of the Matriarch's _mouth_!

Jets of blood shot out of the Xenomorph's maw as she threw her head back, her screamed becoming mixed with choking coughs and sputters. Arching his arm over top of himself, Alec flipped the Queen through the air and smashed her down onto the polished flooring less than a foot away from Verrak Vakarian. The sargeant was bumped a few inches into the air from the force of the shock running through the floor, causing him to crabwalk back slightly from the defeated Alien as she lay choking out torents of acid blood from her mouth.

Alec stood over her, breathing heavily from the force it had taken to injury her so greatly. Taking his gaze away from the Xeno, Alec raised his hand to get a better look at the torn limb still clenched in his grasp.  
A steady rythm of acid dripped from where the jaws had been disconnected from the Queen's body, the sharp teeth and muscles clenched tightly together in the beginings of rigamortis.

That was until they opened up and began snapping rapidly at Alec's face!

"AHHH! AH! AGH!" Alec shouted in fright, his grip fighting against the chomping dismembered jaws, quickly bouncing it from hand to hand as if it were a hot potato!  
Catching it firmly in one hand again, Alec spun around and chucked it into the raging inferno, causing it to let out a long hiss as it burned up.  
"EWWUCK!" Alec shuddered out in disgust as he wiped his slime covered hands onto his furry chest.  
"Hey Ox-head, behind you!" shouted out Jango's voice.

Spinning around, Alec barely had a second to raise both his hands up and catch the Queen's acid spewing jaws mere inches away from his face!

With her tail broken and her inner jaws torn from her body, the Queen was resorting to one last desperate tactic, she was going to rip his head off with her bare teeth!  
With both hands reaching inside her mouth, one pressing her bottom jaw farther down and the other pushing the rest of her head upwards, Alec strained as he tried to shove the Xeno off of him, pushing her back far enough to keep from getting hit by some of the acid still spraying out of her mouth.

In answer to this however, the Queen reached up and wrapped her claws around both of Alec's Minotaur horns, pulling him closer and closer towards her. "If...you wanted a kiss...you could have just said so..." uttered the Guardian through clenched teeth, his muscles bulging as he tried to resist the Matriarch's strength. After being pulled another inch closer, Alec heard a series of metallic clicks emmited from behind the Xeno, followed by an instant snap hiss.

Suddenly a whirling humming sound flashed nearby the struggling two. The Queen let out a choked scream, spitting acid blood onto Alec's chest as Yoda's spinning lightsaber sliced into the backs of her knees. A barrage of gunfire from Verrak, Jango, and the last of the agents impacted into the back of the Xenomorph's torso, forcing her to slowly drop to her knees with a cry.  
Her grip on Alec's horns remained as she dragged him down with her, using every last reserve of her waning strength to bring him closer to her mouth. With every ounce of his own strength, Alec let out a deep feral growl as he pushed his hands in opposite directions, forcing the Queen's lower jaw downward while the rest of her head went up. Her muscles visibly tightened in protest, her jaws trying to clamp down onto his fingers.

Though even as she struggled, her injuries continued to sap the energy out of her, her strength disappearing bit by bit.

With an adrenaline fueled push, Alec wrenched the Queen's bottom jaw a fraction of an inch lower, causing him to push up and rip the beast's entire upper head straight off her spine!

Smoking blood squirted out from the Queen's headless neck as her body fell to the floor, her lower jaw hanging off of her body by a few torn pieces of black leathery skin. Huffing and puffing like he had just run a marathon, Alec threw aside the creature's enormous teardrop head and picked up the body.  
Lifting the lifeless corpse up over his own head like he were presenting it as an offering to some un-seen god, Alec turned towards the raging fires behind him, outstretching his massive arms just a bit higher to make himself seem larger.  
Then, with a great intake of air, the Guardian of the ring let out a long and loud roar of victory, the power of his voice seeming to make the jets of flame billow away from him in response.

The Queen, the Matriarch of the Xenomorphs, the Mother of perhaps the most horrific creature to ever come out of a science-fiction genre had been brought into this world as true flesh and blood, every bit as deadly as James Cameron had imagined her.

And Alec, the un-known Guardian of an ancient and forgotten ring, had defeated her with his bare _hands_!

Arching his back slightly, Alec threw the body directly into several of the gas fed jets. The Queen's black skin had been able to resist most of the flames' burning effects during their fight, but as her body lay directly over top of them it slowly began to succumb to their consuming power.

However, as the flames began to rise up and roll over the corpse, a bright white light began to surround it. The Queen's body was soon enveloped in this blinding aura that blocked out its every detail from view.

As Alec raised a hand to shield his eyes, the light quickly faded away, dispersing out across the flames as if it had never existed. A brief gentle breeze seemed to follow afterwards from out of nowhere, along with a very faint but audible sigh, as if someone were letting out a relieved breath of air.

Alec frowned in confusion. He had never seen this happen before...with any of the Bearers he had journeyed along side in the past.

Suddenly he could feel it again, a cool gentle breeze blowing aginst the furs of his back. Spinning around, he reared back in surprise as he witnessed the same thing happening to all of the dead Xenomorph bodies scattered throughout the Corridor. Although there was no breathy sigh rolling across the air this time, each body glowed a bright white before vanishing within the blink of an eye. Yoda, Jango, and the C-Sec agents were looking around themselves, wary and unsure of what was happening as each body disappeared.

_'Bailey was right, the creatures in Ward D must also have disappeared after they died,'_ Alec thought to himself as the last body vanished.

_KAAAAABBBOOOOOM!_

The Guardian's inner thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a massive fiery explosion that blasted out from a very narrow alleyway that ran along the length of _'Irwin's Weapon's and Antiques'_!

The explosion rocked the entire Corridor, sending loose bits of debris crashing down from the ceiling to land around the injured agents. This, coupled with the violent columns of fire that tore out from the alleyway, sent anything and anyone within a hundred yards flying into walls or tumbling to the floor.

Alec fell to one knee, his large palms slamming onto the floor to keep himself from tumbling over. Thick whisps of brown smoke began rolling into the Corridor, reducing visibility and causing everyone to choke. As people began coughing, Alec glowed bright silver as he shifted back into his original form, his SS uniform and samurai armour coming back into view as his fur faded away and his massive muscles shrank. Now as his old self, he took a look around to see were Jango and Yoda had gotten to.

The Master was laying on his back, coughing slightly as he pulled a small breathing device from his belt, placing it between his teeth as he began to suck in air normally from the small oxygen tanks attached to it. Alec recognised it as one of the breathing devices used by Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jinn in _The Phantom Menace_ when they had been descending through a lake towards Gungan City with Jar Jar Binks.  
Shifting his gaze just off to the left, Alec could also make out the form of Jango Fett through the swirling smoke. The bounty hunter seemed to by lying on his side, propped up on his right elbow, while his left arm still hung limply beside him.

After a second of recovery, Yoda took the air breather out of his mouth and flipped back up onto his feet.  
"Alec, the store that Axel ventured into that was, at this very moment require our aid he might!" Yoda called over to the Guardian.

Alec nodded as he stood up, feeling more comfortable standing with human feet and boots rather than bull hooves. After coughing out some of the smoke he was sucking in, Alec quickly made his way over to Yoda, taking a brief detour to retrieve and contract the Predator's Combi-Stick from out of the floor. Slipping the compact spear under his belt behind his back as he met up with the Jedi, they both came over to Jango who still hadn't moved from where Alec had first spotted him.

Jango grunted as he painfully brought his leg closer up to his chest. Back when Alec had been battling with the Queen, Yoda had been able to use the Force to lift off the broken ceiling beam that had been pinning the Mandalorian to the floor.  
"What's wrong with your leg?" Alec asked as he knelt next to the bounty hunter, examining the limb that Fett was having the most difficulty moving.

"I think that damn beam sprained my ankle when it landed on me, it can barely move," the hunter responded, his body tensing in pain as he tried to rotate it. Yoda nodded as he examined the ankle for himself.  
"Sprained it is, require medical equipment I will if we wish to heal both his leg and shoulder," explained Yoda, his right hand glowing with a deep blue light as he swept it over the injured areas.

"Well he won't be able to walk, or run preferably, in this condition. Which means I've gotta go back to this..." Alec stated, right before reaching down and hooking his arms under Jango's right arm-pit and legs, heaving the cringing bounty hunter up over his head and laying him across both his shoulders behind his neck, holding him in an Army style One-Man Carry.

"It seems even when you're awake I'm always carrying you..." Alec said off to his right, where Jango's head and shoulders were drapped over.  
"I'm not planning on making a habit out of it..." hissed the Mandalorian in pain as he used his right hand to carefully guide his injured left arm over Alec's shoulder, letting it hang lifelessly against his chest.

Suddenly Alec stiffened as a memory flashed before his eyes. A brief image of the ocean, of running across solid metal while the screech of gunfire and people shouting rang out behind him. He could see himself wearing a sandy coloured camouflage uniform, complete with combat boots, a green bullet-proof vest, and a torn badge bearing the red and white of the Canadian flag on his left arm. But all of this wasn't the main focus of the memory, it was the agonizing dead weight of a body that he could feel baring down across his shoulders as he ran.

Alec shook his head quickly, snapping out of the memory.  
"Axel once had to carry someone like this..." the Guardian whispered to himself, making the connection between the way he was carrying Jango and from what he had just seen in Axel's memories.

Taking a look around them, Alec could barely see through the screen of smoke that was still flowing out from the alleyway. From what he could make out however was that pretty much every agent within the area was either still on the ground injured, or coughing their lungs out as they stumbled blindly through the hazy clouds of smoke.

"We've got our smoke cover, and the agents chasing us have been taken out, we should get moving..." said Jango as he too surveyed the scene. Both Alec and Yoda nodded in agreement as they quickly began making their way over to the smoke spewing alleyway.  
"The sooner we can meet up with Axel, the sooner we can finally get off this blasted station," said Alec as he shifted Jango's weight slightly, the trio coming to a stop next to the alley's jagged entrance way, having been blasted apart from the force of the explosion.

"I'm afraid I can't let you go anywhere..." came a familiar Turian voice, followed by an also familiar metallic click.

Alec let out a small bewildered sigh.  
"_You_..._have got_..._to be kidding_," he breathed, slowly spinning himself and by extention Jango around, causing both men to lock eyes with Verrak Vakarian at the same time. Yoda turned also, his un-ignited lightsaber hilt held tightly in his hand.

Verrak was lying on his side about ten feet away from them, just visible enough to be seen through the rolling smoke. His right hand held his activated Karpov, while his left was clamped down onto his left leg. Even through the smoke Alec could see that both the sargeant's leg and hand were drenched in his blue blood, slowly seeping onto them from the large gash in the Turian's thigh.

"Seriously Verrak? After all we've been through?" Alec joked, arching his eyebrows up in mock hurt. The squad leader merely raised his weapon a little high, aiming straight for Alec's forehead.

"Do you think this was some '_glorious'_ battle? Look around you! See how many good people have died here!" Verrak shouted furiously, sweeping his blood soaked hand around himself to indicate the bodies of the agents that had fallen to the Xenomorphs.

Alec's face dropped into a cold, neutral expression.  
"That would have happened anyway. It was better that it turned out like this, if your people had not sacrificed themselves to stop those creatures here, they would have spread out and killed off everyone on the Citadel."  
"They wouldn't have been on the Citadel in the first place if you and cohorts hadn't brought them here!"

That's when the Guardian became angry.  
"You know what Vakarian, _shoot me_, go ahead and shoot me! Lets see what effect that has! Yes we brought them here un-intentionally, and yes they caused alot of destruction and killed a lot of good people." Verrak had his eyes narrowed, his aim straight and true; but something was making him give pause, causing him to listen to what Alec was saying next.

"The creatures that have been attacking the station lately have been brought here by Axel, that's the truth, the rest of what you've heard however is not. We are not terrorists and we are not here to hurt anyone. In fact, we've been trying to get off this station as quick as possible to keep any other creatures from appearing."

"Then why the hell did you announce yourself as a _terrorist_ to an entire audience?..." began Verrak, but Alec cut him off.  
"That was a ruse meant to fighten the crowd into panicking so that we could evade Bailey and his toops, but its caused us more trouble than it was meant to."

Verrak scoffed at the notion.  
"So you're idea of protecting the Citadel is to smuggle yourselves off and endanger some defenseless colony-world with these creatures that somehow spawn around you? I'm sorry sir, I _can't_ let you do that."

Alec sighed as an idea came to him, one simple idea. Tell the truth, the whole truth.

"You want to know everything in a nut-shell Verrak? Fine, I'll give it to you as straight as I can. I'm not Human, I am a being that was created thousands of years ago to safeguard an ancient power. Axel is the newest person to aquire that power in a long time, and he only got it over an hour ago. Although this power has limited understanding, it does have a mind of its own, and it has been trying to test Axel through trials by fire, to see if he is worthy enough of wielding it."

As Alec explained, Verrak's hardened expression began to faulter, changing to one of disbelief mixed with shock.  
"What are you saying? That Axel is..." began the Turian.  
"I'm saying that the longer we stay on this station, the higher the risk becomes of this ancient power summoning more and more creatures like the ones we just fought," answered Alec, inclining his head over to the burning inferno where he and the Queen had done battle.

"So you're asking me to just stand down and let you escape? I can't do that! How would I explain to the families of the people who perished here that their loved ones died for nothing!" Verrak stated with a angry shake of his head.

"They didn't die for nothing Verrak, they gave everything of themselves to defeat the Xenomorphs before they could turn the Citadel into their greatest Hive-nest. If your people hadn't been here to stop them, they would have taken away everyone, down to the last child, to be harvested so they could make more of themselves," Alec said, more gently so as to better convey the seriousness of what he was saying.

If the Queen and the other Xenomorphs had not been stopped, she and her warriors would have nested somewhere and gradually taken over the Citadel piece by piece. There would have been millions of those things by the time it was over!

As Verrak took in this information, his gun arm slowly lowered somewhat, his eyes turning away from Alec to look out towards the opposite end of the Corridor. Through the smoke, he could still make out the outlines of the bodies that lay limp on the floor, the bodies of people he had known and come to trust during his career.

Suddenly sparks and frayed cabling began to explode from the ceiling. A growing humming sound came afterwards as if something were charging up, followed by the flashing of the multi-coloured lights that had once illuminated the Corridor.  
"Power is being restored!" remarked Yoda as the large screens above each of the stores flickered to existance, casting out a glaring white light as their screens displayed black and white lines of static.

_"This way, hurry!"_ commanded a Turian voice, echoing out of the alleyway not far from the group, the very one that Alec and his companions had come out of when they had first arrived in this Corridor. Heavy bootfalls could be heard mixing in with these orders.  
"Looks like more company is coming our way, if we wanna go we gotta go now!" Alec said down to Yoda as he cast a glance back at the alleyway, the sounds of the rapid boots coming closer and closer with each moment.

"But that's only if you'll let us..." the Guardian added, turning back to Verrak with a cocked eyebrow, making his words less of a statement and more of a question.

Verrak's gun arm was still lowered slightly, but his face held a look of indecision, his mouth held slightly open but un-able to say a word.  
"Verrak...the power that Axel now commands brought each of us here from another dimension, and it brought us here for a reason..." began Alec, earning a very confused frown from the squad leader.  
"You've seen the abilities that Yoda and I possess, so you can trust that I'm not lying to you!" Alec hastily threw in, the bootfalls from the alleyway becoming louder.

Conceding to that point, Verrak gave small nod, keeping his eye's and his gun still fixed on Alec.  
"Alright, I guess I can believe that, so I'll bite. What is this reason?" he asked cautiously.

"There is an even greater enemy than the Xenomorphs beyond the outer reaches of the Milky Way galaxy, laying dormant in the vast reaches of Dark Space. It is a hoarde of ancient sentient machines, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Each and every one of them is nearly as large as a skyscraper, and built for the single purpose of wiping out all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years!"

Verrak blinked, wide eyed.

"Axel, myself, and our companions are stuck in this universe until we find a way to stop them from invading once again. The only plan we've thought of so far is to get off the station while aiding one Commander Shepard in his investigation of a Spectre named Saren Arterius, who is working in league with these creatures as we speak," Alec explained.

"How do you know about that? Commander Shepard of the _SSV Normandy_ only arrived half an hour ago to place his charges against Arterius," Verrak asked in a bewilderment, this new information making him listen more closely to Alec's every word.  
"Then that means he's about to begin his investigation in earnest! Which means we need to get the hell out of here before we lose his trail!" Alec urged, motioning to himself and his two comrades.

"There's a dense smoke running throughout the Corridor, activate your automatic breathers!" ordered the Turian voice Alec had heard back in the alleyway.

Snapped his head over in the direction of the alleyway the reinforements had been running through, the Guardian could see the dark outlines of several Turian and Salarian agents begin to materialize through the swirls of brown smoke. They were now inside the Corridor, and had begun advancing closer to the trio!

"Please Verrak..." Alec begged quietly so as to not be heard by the approaching agents. Verrak had begun looking back and forth between the three and the agents, as if trying to make a decision.  
"This isn't some ruse for our benefit, this galaxy _is_ in danger! And you have the power to help save it right _now_!" Alec insisted frantically, pointing a finger hurriedly between Verrak's pistol and the alleyway still billowing with smoke.

After a tense second of silence, the squad leader suddenly used his thumb to press a button near the trigger of his Karpov. The three looked between each other in astonishment as the Turian's pistol de-activated.

"Alright, you saved my life twice so I guess I can return the favor...but remember, you owe me BIG for this," Verrak stated as he painfully placed his pistol on the ground next to himself.

Alec gave a thin smile, nodding in appreciation.  
"Thank you, we'll meet again some day soon...my friend." With an equally appreciative nod from Yoda, and a curt nod of respect from Jango, Alec and the Jedi turned and vanished into the smoke of the alleyway just as the C-Sec reinforcements emerged to where Verrak lay.  
"Oh goodie, I can't wait..." Verrak muttered sarcastically under his breath before cringing in pain, his bloodied hand coming up and holding onto the six scratch marks that went across the left side of his head.

* * *

I let out a shuddering cough as I slowly began to regain consciousness, having been knocked out shortly after the grenade had gone off. As I came to, I began to pat myself down to see if I had been injured, or if my armour had been damaged at all. Remarkably both me and the suit were still in one piece! I coughed again as I sat up, the blast from the explosion having thrown me, Bruce, and Irwin flying several feet away from the destroyed ring of counters.

Suddenly a deep humming alarm sputtered through several damaged speakers that had been nestled near the carved ceiling, the deep orange glow of several lights that hadn't been destroyed in the chaos began to mix with the glow of the fires that burned around us, each of them slowly coming back to life. Some air vents that had been concealed in the walls also came to life, sucking in the smoke that hadn't already poured out through the store's new wall entrance.

"Well...for once that's a sound I like to wake up to!" joked Irwin as he began to lift himself up from his store's battle torn carpet, having been knocked out as well after landing on his front several feet away from me. Bruce was several feet off to my other side, groaning into the carpet as he massaged the fringes of his head, the gashes on his chest having clotted sufficiently.  
"Ugh...and I thought you said you wanted to change that damn alarm boss..." Bruce said painfully as he flipped himself onto his back, still rubbing his head.

Pulling myself up to my feet, I came over and grabbed Bruce by the arm, helping him to stand on his own.  
"I think congratulations are in order Mr. Irwin, your shields were able to stand up to an Inferno grenade," I complimented proudly, taking a moment to reach back and ensure that my compact Super rifle was still attached to the back of my right shoulder.

"They did indeed mate, but a blast like that will have most likely drained their output to dangerous levels," warned the Australian as he stood up.

_"It was worse than that, because of our proximity at the time, the grenade's explosion was just powerful enough to knock out Mr. Sorenson's personal field generator entirely. After all of you had been rendered unconsconsious I had to do a system reboot to bring the suit back online; the shields will power back up in time but it will take a while for them to be combat ready, so I advise that we try and avoid anymore fire-fights Mr. Sorenson."_

I could feel the suit tingling in my arms and around my stomach, places where Haxon was still trying to restore power.  
"If you want to avoid a fire-fight with C-Sec there's gonna be no other time like the present to get out of here, a blast like that is sure to turn a few heads from the authorities," said Bruce as he pointed over to the large hole blasted in the wall.

I nodded in agreement after making sure that my Phalanx was still clipped to my belt. But before making to leave, I surveyed the store with a slow sweep of my head, taking in all the damage with a wince.  
All of the display cases that had housed hundreds of ancient artifacts were now nothing but crushed or shattered wrecks. The domed ceiling that had once displayed beautiful representations of the Greek and Norse gods was now a cracked and bullet torn shadow of its former self.  
I took extra note of the three demolished counters that had sat so nicely within the center of this fine store, now nothing more than twisted smoking husks. I could even see a few damaged pistols sticking out of the rubble, reminding me of the other merchandise that I had inadvertently destroyed.

"I swear I will pay for all this one day..." I began apologetically, sweeping my hands out to indicate all the damaged or still burning components. But to my surprise Irwin let out a chuckle as he laid a hand on my shoulder, that knowing look creeping up onto his face.

"I've got a secret to tell you mate; aside from the guns that were in the counters, everything that was in those display cases was barely worth fifty credits."

I blinked, a frown of confusion growing on my face as I processed what the store owner had just said.  
"Wait a minute, are you saying..." I began, but Irwin and Bruce only burst out laughing at my reaction.

After calming down, it was Bruce who answered what I was thinking.  
"You see Axel, during the first year after Irwin opened this place he had a large number of robberies against him, millions in weapons and artifacts would be stolen each time. So eventually I came up with a way to minimize our losses; whenever we would get new artifacts I would have plastic replicas of them created to be displayed throughout the store, while the real artifacts would remain in high security storage."

"So you're telling me that all of these priceless artifacts were actually _FAKES_!" I said in disbelief, looking around at the destroyed cases. Bruce and Irwin began cackling again with eager nods.

"_This way, hurry_!" I could hear a faint Turian voice echo through hole in the wall, along with a growing thunder of metal boots hitting the floor of the Corridor outside.

That sudden sound caused both of the store owners to somber up quickly.  
"You're running out of time Axel, C-Sec isn't known for its charitible nature," Irwin pointed out quickly, looking over towards the smoking hole with un-easy eyes.  
"You're right..." I said with a nod. However, I still took the moment to extend my hand out to the Australian.

"Major Steven Irwin, it's been a pleasure, and..." I began as I shook hands with Irwin before turning towards Bruce, my eyebrow cocked as I gave him an inquisitive look.

The Turian smiled as he shook my hand also, "..._Bruukilitennix_."

I chuckled a bit as I tried running through the store keeper's real name a few times, and failing in the process.  
"_Bruce_...I owe you one for those Inferno grenades," I said appreciatively as we finished shaking hands.

"Take care of this guy Haxon, and don't go adding anymore illegal software to your systems without expert supervision," Irwin said, directing his words to the A.I. like a father parting with his child.  
_"That was _one_ time, and it barely counted as illegal by the Hanar authorities when they caught us,"_ Haxon retorted, slightly defensively.

"Farewell." With a fond smile, I gave a parting nod to them as I turned and began making my way towards the blast hole.  
"Oh, and _Mr. Galaxy Hopper!"_ Irwin called over to me.

Spinning around, I had to instantly snap up both my hands to catch a small gray credit chit and black electronic key that came flying at my face.  
"Use that key to take my Hover car, it's in the parking-lot behind the store. The chit contains the 50,000 we bet on, since I believe you won it with that four-in-one kill," the Ausse added in with a laugh.

"I'm gonna miss you two. If my companions and I make it off the Citadel I'll send you the coordinates for a safe place where we can meet, if you agree to come then I'll tell you everything you want to know," I offered as I stashed the credit chit and car key into one of the pouches on my belt.

"Oh we'll be there alright! This is a story I gotta to hear in _detail_," Bruce assured, clutching lightly at his chest as a numb pain flared up.

"_There's a dense smoke running throughout the Corridor, activate your automatic breathers!"_ barked the Turian voice we'd heard earlier, this time much clearer, showing that he and his troops were getting closer!

"_Adios_," I said with a quick farewell salute before dashing through the hole, disappearing into the waves of smoke.

* * *

Bruce and Irwin blew out a relieved breath as they sat down together on one of the ring steps. As they stretched their legs across the steps, looking around at the flaming ruins of the Australian's store, the Turian's eyes suddenly shot wide open as he turned to his employer.

"Steve, you do know that he didn't _pay_ for his guns, right!" Bruce asked quickly, jabbing a talon over at the wall. Irwin let out an amused chuckle as he shook his head, waving it off.  
"Considering that that boy probably saved our asses, he can keep them as complements of the house."

Bruce nodded in defeat, leaning back carefully so as to not injury his chest any further. After a few seconds of observing the damage done to the store, Irwin reached behind his back and withdrew a silver hip-flask from his belt. After twisting off the cap and taking a swig, he offered it to Bruce. The Turian accepted it with a cocked brow-ridge, taking a moment to sniff the contents.  
"I didn't know you had aquired a taste for Turian Brandy," he stated as he took his own drink before handing it back to the Human.

"After having to put up with you for six years, its finally begun to grow on me." The two friends shared a hearty chuckle as they passed the flask back and forth.

"Do you really buy what he said, about being from another galaxy?" Bruce asked after another drink.  
"I think so actually, after what we just saw, and considering everything that C-Sec has been saying about him. Though if thats true, I think he may have been brought here under dire circumstances, possibly for a great purpose or to avert some kind of castastophic disaster," Irwin explained, turning his eyes back to the hole in the wall as he took another sip.

"That's quite a big deduction from so little evidence," countered Bruce.  
"Well I could be totally wrong too, perhaps his whole story is a hoax to allow him to escape. But I don't think so, I've just got this gut feeling about him. Its all about keeping an open mind Bruce..." said Irwin as the stomping bootfalls of the new C-Sec agents ran into the alleyway, several of them running past the hole in the direction Axel had gone.

"...all about keeping an open mind."

As he took another swig from the flask, three Turian agents stormed through the hole, clear oxygen masks covering their mouths and noses to allow them to breath normally through the smoke. As soon as the three entered they slightly lowered their weapons, their heads looking around at the burning wreck they were standing in. After a few seconds of this they all began to give each other confused looks at the sight of the two store keepers sharing a drink while the room lay demolished around them.

"Gentlemen, come in and make yourselves at home..." Irwin stated with a broad smile.

As the agents walked up to them, asking questions about the state of everything, they unknowingly walked right past the wreck of the machine that Bruce had been using to repair Alexandre Henri's flintlock pistol. As the light from the surrounding fires burned brightly, the newly polished ingravings along the pistol's barrel gleamed golden as it stuck out from the wreckage.

* * *

I ran straight through the blast hole, holding my arm across my mouth and nose as I went through the thick, concealing smoke. But unfortunately in the next second I smashed full on into the wall of the store right in front of me!  
I yelled out as I slammed into the wall like a bug on a windshield, sliding down to the floor with my hand holding onto my face.

_"Bruce did say that it was a narrow alley, Mr. Sorenson,"_ remarked Haxon as I shook my head to throw off the pain.  
"Yes he did, and its _Axel_, Haxon, calling me Mr. Sorenson just makes me feel like I'm sixty years old," I said as I tried to pick myself up. Only I didn't get very far, for as soon as I planted my hands on the ground I was suddenly run over by a little green man!

A surprised cry came out of Yoda as he tripped across my stomach, the thick smoke blocking his vision as much as mine. I grunted painfully as the Jedi's body fell across my abdomen, only to have it followed by two sharp toed jackboots that dug into my side as Alec and Jango tumbled over me!  
_"OWW!"_ shouted Jango angrily as Alec slammed face first into the debris strewn floor, causing Jango's injured arm to become pinned under his chest.

"Alec! Yoda! You guys are already here!" I said in delight as I looked between the Jedi and the Guardian.

"Good to finally see you again Axel, you left us for too long," Alec said with a smile as he pushed the cringing bounty hunter off his shoulders. As he turned his head back to me, he cocked an eyebrow at the sight of the form fitting red and black scale armour I wore.  
"You look..._different_," he said as he glanced down at the Phalanx pistol on my belt, along with whatever he could see of my Super rifle sticking out over my shoulder.

"Good to see he's finally awake," I said as I inclined my head over to Jango, who was writhing in agony as he held onto his broken shoulder.  
"Never in my long life have I heard a Mandalorian complain so much..." came Yoda's muffled voice as he squirmed his way out from underneath Alec's body, having gotten pinned beneath him after he had tripped over me.  
"You're not dealing with a broken bone that wasn't braced while you were asleep," said Jango as Alec stood up. After helping me and Yoda to our feet, the Guardian hooked his arms underneath Jango's body and hoisted him back onto his shoulders similar to how he had done before.

"Man do we have a story to tell you," the Guardian said to me. Judging from what I had already gone through, and from the six claw marks I could seen torn into the side of Yoda's robes, I easily came to one conclusion.

"Xenomorphs right?"

"Damn right, and the Queen was here too. She and I went head to head with each-other and I kicked her ass!" he said proudly with a series of nods, half punching the air as if to demonstrate his fighting technique.  
"Why didn't you just..._beam..._yourself over to me like you did after you finished off the Ogre?" I asked, not knowing what to call Alec's re-appearing act that he had used back when we had first set foot in the _SKYLIFT_ elevator.

"Because that only works for _me_, I wouldn't have been able to take either of these guys with me and they would have been left to fight the Xenos alone. Plus it takes a great deal of concentration to not lose an arm or a leg in the process, so I tend to use that trick as seldom as I can."

I sighed as I gave a shrug, not knowing enough about Alec's abilities to really argue over them.

"So, you've got guns, you've got armour..." began Alec as he inspected my person.  
_"He also has my services, both in battle and in logistics. Greetings, my name is Haxon-17, and these services are availible to you and your companions if you wish them..."_ piped up Haxon's voice, causing both Yoda and Alec to jump at the sound.  
"You got an _A.I. too_?" the Guardian asked me, a wide grin of disbelief on his face, clearly having not expected me to make that good of a purchase.  
"And better yet..." I began with a small smile of my own as I reached into my pouch and retrieved the electronic key to Irwin's hover car.

"A large amount of credits, along with a vehicle that can get us to the Military Docks; after that all we have to do is hotwire a ship and get the hell..." I explained, when suddenly a glowing blue thermal round impacted onto what was left of the blasted wall next to us!

All of us spun our heads around to the entrance of the alleyway. Through the swirling whisps, we could make out the forms of three armoured Turian agents pointing assault rifles at us, each of them seemed to be wearing a breathing mask of some kind.

"Don't move a muscle!" ordered the lead Turian as he advanced through the smoke. As his features became more noticible, we could see that he was a large dark skinned Turian with red tribal markings on his face.  
Alec suddenly let out a gasp of recognision as he stabbed a finger towards the agent.

"Its _him_! Its that commander guy from the park!" Alec declared frantically, jabbing his finger in the commander's direction repeatedly. Through the clear material of his breathing mask, I could have sworn I saw the commander smirking as he advanced toward us.  
"That's right, and this time you _won't_ escape!" he stated as the two other Turians flanked him.

"Oh yeah? Watch us! Yoda!" I ordered down to the Jedi at my side. Without a word the Jedi drew both his hands back and snapped them forward, sending out an enormous blast of invisible Force energy. The blast slammed into the commander, sending him and his agents flying several feet back down the alleyway to land in a semi pile-up.  
"This is it, RUN!" I shouted as I scooped up Yoda and threw him onto my back, both Alec and I charging down towards the other end of the alleyway as the Turians un-tangled themselves.

We only had to run for a few seconds before we sprinted into the parking-lot that Irwin had mentioned to me. Unfortunately the store owner had failed to mention the exact whereabouts of his car, or how big the lot was!  
"Oh no..." Alec groaned in dread as we both came to a skidding stop once we got a glimpse of the lot itself.

There were _HUNDREDS_ of hover cars in here!

The parking-lot was a large metal platform that stretched down the entire length of the Corridor, passing behind each store that lined this side. A refreshingly cold breeze blew against us, dispelling the trails of smoke that were still following us out of the alleyway, since the lot was wide open to the free space that surrounded the Citadel, lead out to the whining lanes of Fast Transit cars that flashed back and forth several hundred feet away from us.

A thick roof of machinery and metal extended out five hundred feet above us, entwined with sharps pipes and metal cabling, casting a cool dark shadow over the area. This roof covered the entire length and width of the parking-lot, continuing on even after the lot ended. Narrowing my eyes, I could see that this roof was actually the covering of the great Presidium Ring that encircled the Citadel Tower, extending out to encompass the Military and Merchant docking areas far across from us on the other side of the Ring, along with any other sections connected to it.

Squinting farther ahead of us, I could also make out the shining white base of the Tower itself sitting in the middle of the Ring like a lone island in the middle of an ocean. Off to the sides of the lot's platform were hundreds of other platforms and levels, giving us clear views of on-going construction projects, or working walkways that could give citizens an airy view of the Tower and the rest of the cloudy white _Nebula_ that surrounded the white star of _Widow_.

Covering almost the entire lot, dozens of columns of parked hover cars stretched out before us, a veritable sea of red, black, and blue rooves. The entire place was packed like an over-flowing Wal-Mart lot during the chistmas holidays!  
"Haxon, tell me that Irwin installed an alarm on his car," I pleaded as we all began looking from left to right, hopelessly searching through vehicles for one that we had no description of.  
_"He did in-fact, there is a system built into the key you hold that activates it..."_ Haxon began.

"Alright, thats great news for once," I said with relief as I lifted up the key, looking for some kind of button that would start the alarm.  
_"However, it is..._voice activated_, requiring a special password,"_ the A.I. threw in hesitantly. Alec closed his eyes and tilted his head back as if he knew something bad was coming up.  
"Ookaaaay, so what _is_ the password?" I asked, feeling more and more uneasy about the way Haxon had voiced this new developement.

_"I...I don't know...Irwin usually changes them every month,"_ Haxon said, this time his reasons for hesitancy becoming as clear as the sun.

_"WHAT?"_

Suddenly another rifle shot rang out, shooting in between Alec and I as a thermal round tore a large hole into the side of one of the cars ahead of us. Leaping off of my back, Yoda's lightsaber hummed into action as he deflected three more rounds that came shooting towards us from out of the swirling brown smoke that still filled the alleyway farther back.  
"They can see your lightsaber through the smoke!" I shouted as I grabbed the Jedi by the back of his robes, yanking him out of the line of fire as I threw us both to the side of the entrance.

"I got these..." Jango remarked slowly from Alec's shoulder, as he extended and aimed the gauntlet blaster on his right arm.  
"NO!" cried Alec as he used his hand to grab Jango's forearm and push it a bit higher, causing Fett to fire his blast into the ceiling. The blast impacted into a malfunctioning light bulb, exploding and sending down a rain of sparks and half melted glass shards. One of the Turian's cried out in pain as the debris struck him, the black outline that was his body visibly collapsing to the ground through the smoke.

"What's _your_ problem? They're already after us!" said Jango as he fought against Alec's grip, his constant thrashing on the Guardian's shoulders causing Alec to wobble and stagger awkwardly away from the entrance.  
"We are _not_ going to add murder to our crime record, we shoot back only to distract agents, not _kill_ them!" I shouted to him over the sound of more rifle fire.

"You're making this escape ten times harder..." Jango muttered as he retracted the barrel.

"We need that car Axel! Otherwise we're never getting off this station!" Alec shouted over to me.  
"Haxon, is there anyway for you to scan this key and find out what Irwin changed the password to?" I asked as I drew and activated my Phalanx, holding the key in my other hand.  
_"Using the store's records, I believe I can, but it will take several minutes,"_ the A.I. began.

"All rifles, advance forward!" ordered the Turian commander, accompanied by more thermal rounds and the stomping of boots.

"How's that no-kill rule holding up _now_?" asked Jango sarcastically.

"Split up!" I called to them as I dashed towards one of the aisleways in-between the columns of parked cars, Yoda jumping up onto my shoulder and deflecting several stray shots that came my way.  
"Good idea," Alec said casually to Jango before dashing off to another aisle several columns away from me. The Turian commander was the first to break through the smoke, throwing off his oxygen mask as several Turian and Salarian agents followed in his wake. As they saw us running in opposite directions, the commander signalled half of his men to begin firing at Alec, while he and the rest began firing at me!

* * *

Alec jerked from side to side, dodging and sidestepping erratically as thermal rounds began to impact or ricocheting off of the cars around him, tearing up their bodies and sending metal fragments spraying into the air with brief flashes of blue light. As one of the rounds shattered through a car windshield, another shot found its mark and sunk straight in between Alec's shoulder blades!  
"Aagrh!" Alec shouted in pain as he fell sideways, smashing onto the front hood of one of the cars, sending himself and Jango rolling roughly over the side before tumbling in-between it and the car next to it.  
"Arr!" Jango hissed out angrily as he gripped his broken shoulder, using his good leg to help push himself up into a sitting position.

"Oh _shut UP _princess! I'm the one who just got shot in the back!" Alec barked as he pulled himself into his own sitting position, his back wound already healed as he leaned against the car they had flipped overtop of.

"I'll be lucky if this arm can be fixed _at all_, after what its gone through," Jango said calmly, despite letting out quiet pained breaths. The bounty hunter also leaned against the car, sitting beside Alec as he kept extra pressure on his broken bone. However both men soon had to throw themselves to the metal floor as a barrage of rounds impacted against the vehicle, blasting huge holes into its exposed side and through the windows, sending metal and glass shards raining down on the two.

* * *

Meanwhile, the commander and the rest of his agents continued to fire round after round at me, slicing through glass or shooting off different portions of the vehicles as I ran farther down the aisleway, keeping my head and torso bent low to avoid the glass splinters or stray shots that whizzed around me. Yoda had jumped from my shoulder to take some of the pressure off me and was now leaping from car roof to car roof like a green leprechaun, deflecting each shot taken at him with expert maneuverings of his lightsaber.

"Haxon, what's the status on that password?" I barked over the gun fire, stopping for a second to stand up and return a shot of my own, causing the C-Sec agents to duck low for a few moments before returning their barrage.

_"I'm going as fast as I can, I only have two more terabytes out of ten thousand to search through before I hit Irwin's personal files. If its not found anywhere else, the password has to be saved in there,"_ reported Haxon as I dived out of the path of an exploding windshield.

"You went through ten thousand terabytes that fast? Where were you when I was in college..." I said off hand as I came up in a roll, quickly taking cover in-between two of the nearest cars. Seeing this, Yoda made a spinning leap, deflecting a storm of thermal rounds as he landed next to me. Both of us crouched between the two vehicles with our heads bowed low.

_"Axel, try saying something while I continue searching, there is a slight chance that you might get lucky before I reach Irwin's files,"_ Haxon added in.  
"That's a _very_ slight chance..." I began as Yoda and I pulled away from the side of the car, which had just been hit by a shot taken from the commander.  
_"Just say something random, use what you already know about Irwin and maybe you'll hit on something I'm missing!"_ the A.I. said clearly as a volley of rifle fire slammed into the side of the car, causing it to jerk towards us.

"Move up!" I heard the commander's order echo throughout the large parking-lot. Peeking my head around the back propulsion thrusters of the hover car, I could see him and the two Salarian agents moving down the aisle towards us, popping in and out from behind different cars.

"Move now we must," Yoda said to me, inclining his head over to the other side of the aisle. I nodded as I let out a deep breath, gripping my Phalanx with both hands. With a subtle nod, we both sprang out from behind our cover!

Dashing across the width of the aisle, I fired several shots into the cars the commander and his agents were kneeling behind, causing them to duck back down before they could crack off a shot.

"Uhh, Australia...Sydney...Kangaroo..._crikey_!" I began yelling out as I ran through the narrow spaces between the sides of the cars, listing off the first words that came to mind when I thought of Irwin.  
_"Try something a bit more general than _that!" Haxon scoffed in my ear as I continued running. By now the commander and his men had snapped back up and were taking shots at us again, shredding through the cars that we ran by. As I bent down low to avoid getting hit, Yoda began deflecting away rounds again, keeping pace with my running as he sprang from car to car.

"Bruce...money...Terminus...Batarians...Haxon-17, I don't know _'RETIREMENT'_ FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" I shouted angrily as I was forced to dive to the ground, one of the commander's well aimed shots having smashed through a window and impacting into the controls of the car behind me, causing the whole inside of the vehicle to explode outward in a dazzle of fire and sparks, sending out a net of glass shards shooting over top of me!  
I heard a gruff cry come from Yoda as the blast knocked him to the ground several feet ahead of me, the Jedi rolling to a stop within the center of the next aisle that I had been planning on crossing over.

But there was another noise that I was hearing now, echoing throughout the vast parking-lot from close by, a blaring alarm that sounded like it had a car horn mixed in with it. Crawling forward on my front, I came closer to Yoda, who had gotten up into a kneeling position. Sticking my head out into the aisleway, both me and the Master turned our gaze farther down to where the source of the alarm was coming from.

Sure enough, parked at the very end of the column near the steel guard-railing that kept people from falling off the platform into the endless white clouds of the _Serpent Nebula_, was a hover car that was flashing its lights and honking its horn periodically in sync with the alarm. We'd found Irwin's car!

_"That was it! Axel, _'retirement'_ was the password! Irwin always talks about how much he hated retiring!"_ Haxon stated with joy. An astonished smile stretched across my face.  
"I'll be damned, what are the odds..." I began when suddenly the loud thud of boots on thin metal clanked out behind me.

_"Freeze!"_ a Salarian voice commanded. Spinning around onto my back, my eyes locked with the smoking barrel of a Kessler pistol aiming straight at my forehead! Standing tall on the hood of the car I was laying beside, a panting Salarian agent glared down at me, his pistol looking like it had been modified for maximum damage.

"Let go of the pistol!" he ordered, using his other hand to point at the Phalanx still tight in my grasp. Immediately I released it, leaving it on the ground as I slowly stood up with my hands raised.  
"And don't even bother, otherwise I'll shoot him in the head," he snapped over at Yoda, who's lightsaber had rolled several feet away from him after he had landed.

"Drop the weapon on your back, get on your knees, and place your hands behind your head," the agent said, this time more calmly. I nodded as I slowly complied, raising my right hand to reach back for my compact Super rifle.

But before he could react, I immediately snapped my hand out towards him, feeling the ring's power awaken as I threw a small invisible blast of energy at the agent's gun!

The shocked Salarian's arms were blown to the side, the agent staggering slightly on the hood of the car as his pistol was sent flying from his grasp. In his disoriented state, I sprang forward, striking out with a hooking punch that swept the agent's legs out from under him.

With a grunt the Salarian smashed off the side of the hood, crashing to the floor. As he tried to stand back up, I reached down with both hands and grabbed him by the handle of his armoured chestplate. Swinging the light weighing alien through the air, I smashed him into the car behind me, shattering the glass side window. The Salarian scowled in rage as he threw a hard punch into the side of my stomach, causing me to cringe from the hit and drop a hand from the chest plate. The agent took that opportunity to strike a blow across my jaw, causing me to stagger backwards, my head thrown to the side from the force of the hit.

Yoda quickly snapped out his hand, calling his saber hilt into his palm, his green blade flaring to life as he readied himself to assist me. But I wasn't going to be taken down by one measely punch!

Recovering quickly, I turned back and stopped the agent's next punch by catching his fist with my free hand, since my left hand had still managed to hold on to his chestplate. (And because I'm really the Terminator! HAHAHA!)

With a swift strike, I shoved the hardest point of my knee straight up into his groin! I didn't know if Salarians had similar physiology to Humans, so I had no real idea if my attack would have the same effect on him as it would a Human man. Luckily, the Salarian let out a loud groan of pain as he doubled over, his fist dropping from mine. Before he could recover, I sent a vicious upper-cut into his face, causing him to arch backwards and slam against the hover car for a second time.

Grabbing his armour with my right hand while I balled and drew back my left, I slammed a bone shaking punch straight into his own jaw. The Salarian let out a small grunt of pain as he lost consciousness, his body spinning from the force of the strike as a few drops of green blood sprayed out from his mouth. His body slammed once into the side of the car before falling limply to the floor.

I smiled at my victory, rubbing my sore face as I looked down at the sleeping agent. Looking back up however caused me to freeze once again. The Turian commander stood several cars away from us with his rifle pointed directly at me, his eye pressed to his scope and a smirk on his face. With one squeeze of the trigger, he fired a single blue round that struck me directly in the chest!  
I yelled out as I jerked from the impact, falling backwards against the side of the hover car that I had smashed the Salarian into. Bracing against the roof of the car with one hand while my other pressed down onto my aching chest, I looked over at the commander in defiance.

He sneered as he fired two more rounds at me, which were suddenly deflected by the timely intervention of Yoda! The Master deflected the shots in a millisecond as he landed in a crouch on the hood of the car in front of me, standing between me and the commander.

The two men eyed each other venomously, Yoda with his lightsaber held across his chest, while the commander kept his rifle raised. Finally the Turian clamped his talon down on the trigger.

Yoda used his sword hand to easily deflect the volley of rounds being fired at him, while with his other he extended out towards one of the vehicles nearby. With a clenching of his fingers, he raised his arm slightly, willing the Force to flow through him as if he were a conduit to channel its power.

Suddenly the metal on one of the parked cars groaned in protest as it was lifted up from the ground, slowly rising twenty feet into the air before coming to a dead hover above eveyone's heads!

The commander stopped firing as he and his other Salarian agent looked up at the floating hover car, their eyes wide as they noticed the absence of a Biotic haze surrounding its body.  
"How in the name of..." began the commander as he glanced back at Yoda, who hadn't taken his eyes off the Turian for a moment.

Right away the Jedi let out a determined grunt as he swiped his free arm downwards, manipulating the car into divebombing towards the commander and his agent!

_"SCATTER!"_ the commander shouted to the Salarian as he and the other man dived in opposite directions, the levitated car smashing down bumper first into several of the cars that the Turian had been standing by. In a great crash of twisting metal and shattering glass, the car crushed the other group of vehicles like a meteor, the impact causing several of the broken cars to bounce or skid away as it slammed into them.

One of these said cars smashed into the backside of the commander as he tried standing up, slamming him against the side of another car and pinning him there from the waist down!

"Argh! Dammit!" he cried in pain, his right arm that held his rifle also being pinned between the two cars. Yoda's grim face remained stoic as he flicked the button on his saber hilt, causing the glowing blade to retract and snuff out with a hiss. "You think you can escape in a _hover car?_ We have over 200,000 agents protecting this station, along with cannons that can stop a battle-cruiser hundreds of miles away! You four haven't got a _prayer_!" the commander spat out with a cackle, a small trickle of blue blood coming from the corner of his mouth as he painfully struggled to free himself with his left hand.

"Perhaps alone we don't, but we've already proven that we've got more than a fair chance when we stick together," I said over to the commander as I came up behind Yoda, clipping my Phalanx to my belt. Yoda gave a small 'hum', along with the slightest crack of a smile as he turned to me. "How feel do you Axel?" he asked as he looked to my chest-plate, where a small scorch mark had been left after the commander's shot had hit me.

"Its fine, the armour obsorbed it like a bullet-proof vest. Although Haxon, why weren't my shields up, I thought you said they'd have re-charged by now?" I said to Yoda before turning my attention to the A.I.  
_"They were just a few seconds short of reaching maximum power when the commander shot you,"_ responded Haxon. I rolled my eyes at my great fortune.

* * *

As all this was happening, Alec and Jango were peaking over the ruined hood of the car they had taken refuge behind, trading fire periodically with the three Turian agents that were crouched in cover only a few dozen feet away from them. Both of the cars that these two groups were using for said cover were now nothing more than smoking wrecks. Since Jango's blasters dealt more destructive damage than C-Sec weaponry, the Turian's car was either melted or blown apart in many places. The car that Alec and the bounty hunter were leaning behind wasn't in much better shape, being riddled with holes and carbon-scoring all along the side.

"We gotta end this soon, otherwise more reinforcements are going to pour through that alleyway," said Alec as he blind fired around the front of the car with his borrowed blaster pistol. Jango nodded as he stretched his good arm out across the hole riddled hood, taking the extra time to actually aim at the Turians, his blasts being the ones that were actually coming close to hitting the agents while Alec's simply exploded around them or against their car.

"Press that small button on the back of the barrel," Jango said as he fired off another blast, pointing to the said button on the blaster Alec was using. The Guardian cocked an eyebrow as he pressed his thumb against it.  
"Why?"  
"You'll see the next time you pull the trigger," Jango said as he also pressed the button on his blaster, aiming his arm out to take another shot at the agents. Alec quickly reached up and grabbed the bounty hunter by the forearm, stopping him before he could fire.  
"Remember, we're not killing them. Got it," he said coldly to the Mandalorian. Jango gave a short scoff as he pulled his arm out of Alec's grasp.

"Have a little trust, we're suppose to be working together aren't we?" Jango asked in a condescending tone as he took aim again, both of them flinching slightly as a shot from the Turians smashed against what was left of the windshield.  
"This is coming from the guy who wanted to kill us less than an hour ago," countered Alec as he peeked his head around the bumper, only to yank it back as a blue blast glanced off near where his face had been.

That comment caused Jango to retract his arm and sit back down next to Alec.

"I _didn't_ want to kill you, I only wanted information as to why I was brought to this place," the Mandalorian stated.  
"Axel was the first person I met when I arrived here, he already knew my name and said that he knew everything about my past, I figured that if I found him again I might be able to get some answers."

Alec slowly nodded, coming to a realisation.

"But then Yoda appeared! You knew that since you had already worked with the Sith he would see you as a threat," Alec said, the dots connecting quickly in his mind. Jango nodded at this.  
"I don't _hate_ the Jedi, but I could care less about what they do. To be honest I inwardly despised the Sith while I was working for them, mostly because of the damage they had done to the Mandalorians throughout history, but it was merely business to me so I had no true qualms about dealing with their kind."

"There had to be something that drew you, otherwise why would you have bothered to accept their work in the first place?" asked Alec before they both ducked their heads down a bit farther as several rounds skimmed over the top of the hood to impact against the other car the two were stuck beside.  
"It was good work for someone of my occupation, they would always have more jobs for me as soon as I was available. But it was the perks that really drew me to them, despite their history or the plans they had for the Republic. They offered housing, weapons, money...but what really bought me was when they contracted my services to help them create the Clone Army."

Alec nodded again, a small smirk forming on his face. "That's when you asked to have Boba created, an un-altered clone for yourself, a son to whom you could pass on your knowledge." Jango's helmeted head reared back slightly, his posture becoming slightly defensive.  
"It seems you both know more about me than most people..." he uttered, casting a brief glance over top of the hood, only to duck back down as another round tore into it.  
"I have Axel's memories, most of the stuff he knows about you I know as well," Alec answered with a shrug.

Jango gave a small grunt as he gingerly rubbed his shoulder.  
"Yes, I wanted a son to pass my skills to, and the Sith had a quick way of making that a reality. Other than that, my employment was merely for profit, I owed no real loyalty to them."

"So you're saying that you would have been willing to work with us if we had just asked you back in the elevator?" Alec shot over at him.  
"_Possibly_, if Axel had an offer good enough to peak my interest!" Jango shot back, both men now eyeing each other in a hostile manner.

"What about saving an entire galaxy from genocidal robots? You'd be given enough rewards to make yourself a king," Alec pointed out.

"I don't know enough about this galaxy to tackle that big of a contract. I'm only helping you so that I can get off this damn station in one piece, after that happens we're parting ways," Jango stated flatly. Lifting his pistol up near his head, the bounty hunter nodded at the Guardian.  
"Now...on my mark."  
Getting up into a crouch, Alec held his pistol at the ready. With another nod, both men whipped their arms over top of the ruined hood and clamped down onto their triggers.

The blasters began to fire wildly, sending out blast after blast without the triggers having to be pumped. This new barrage caused the Turians to duck down low as the blasts impacted into their ruined car, tearing through what was left of it and causing large plums of smoke and fire to explode across it.  
"It's going to blow!" one of the agents shouted.

All three of them began dashing in different directions, barely getting several feet away from the flaming chassis before it exploded. The exploding car sent out more fire along with debris and a small shockwave, knocking the Turians flying. Two of them smashed into other cars, knocking them unconscious as they rolled off onto the floor.

"It goes fully automatic? _Nice_!" Alec said in suprise, cracking a smile as he looked down at his blaster, now understanding what pressing that silver button meant.

The third Turian was thrown into a windshield, his body cracking a spiderweb like fracture across the glass. However this one was able to stay awake, shaking off the effects of the impact as he jumped off and began firing his rifle from behind another car.

Alec and Jango ducked back down as the agent's rounds tore into what was left of their car's hood, causing fire and smoke to errupt from the inside as the rounds went through the hood and impacted into the car's engine.  
"We gotta move now! Otherwise this thing is gonna end up the same way their's did!" Alec said over to Jango as he shoved his blaster under his belt.  
Jango nodded but grunted in pain as he grabbed his leg.  
"My ankle still isn't working right, I won't get very far," he said. Suddenly Alec got a wide grin on his face, his eyes equally wide as if he had just come up with a revolutionary idea.

"Jango, have you ever ridden before?" the Guardian asked, that crazy look still on his face. The bounty hunter looked at him for a moment, unsure if he should trust Alec with his face put in that expression.  
"Yes...I've ridden mounts before," he answered tentatively. Immediately Alec grabbed his good arm and wrapped it around the back of his neck, helping Jango onto his un-sprained leg as the two moved around the back of the car, keeping their heads low to avoid being seen by the Turian.

"Oh good, no worries then!" Alec said with relief as his body began to glow a faint silver.

* * *

Yoda and I continued to move quickly down the aisleway toward Irwin's squawking hover car, both of us casting wary glances left and right in-case anymore agents were hiding amongst the cars.  
"Haxon, could you turn off that alarm? We already know where the thing is," I said to the A.I., the blarring sound from the vehicle becoming more and more irritable as we neared it. Without a word the alarm immediately silenced. Suddenly a rifle shot rang out, hitting me in the back and causing my shields to flare up around my body for a brief second.

Spinning around with lightsaber and pistol drawn, Yoda and I faced off against one of the Turian agents that had been shooting at Alec and Jango in the next aisle only a moment ago.  
_'Where did they go anyway?'_ I thought as I cast a glance over in that direction, seeing no sign of the bounty hunter or the Ring Guardian. The Turian came out from behind the car he had been standing by, firing two more shots directly at my chest. I jerked only slightly as my shields flared again, causing the thermal rounds to disperse and disappear as soon as they made contact.

Taking aim at the Turian's lower leg, I fired off a shot from my Phalanx. With trained reflexes, the Turian dropped a hand from his rifle and slapped a small button on his belt, causing his own shields to flare as my shot hit him. The agent fired another shot, to which I answered with another shot of my own, both rounds hitting the other's shields.

I couldn't help but laugh at this trading of blows, both of us shooting at the other but causing no damage.

"Come on, I'm wearing pieces of Spectre armour, who's shields do you think are gonna last longer?" I asked the agent after he had fired another round. The Turian merely set his rifle to a higher setting.  
"I've already gotten off more shots on you. I'm only going to tell you this once, put your weapons on the ground now, or I'll put you down on the ground with them!" the Turian ordered viciously, his right eye squeezed against the scope of his rifle.

Before either me or Yoda could answer him, we saw a strange sight come from behind the Turian. Jango Fett suddenly rose up into view from behind a cluster of cars, his right arm wrapped around the neck of some kind of creature that he rode on the back of. Quickly this creature moved around the cars, bearing the injured Jango on it as it entered into the aisleway, the hooves on its feet clopping loudly on the metal floor.

It was an un-saddled black stallion! The horse snorted as it turned towards the Turian's backside, taking a moment to kick at the ground before charging at full speed. I could hear Jango hissing in pain as he bounced with each gallop, riding the horse bare-back style.

"Not if we put you on the ground_ FIRST_!" shouted Alec's voice from out of the horse's mouth as it blew past the Turian. The agent barely had a second to turn around in surprise when he was struck in the face by a Mandalorian fist, Jango having lashed out with a powerful swinging punch that sent the Turian spinning to the ground, knocking him out cold.

"Need a lift?" Alec asked as he galloped past us, Jango extending out his good hand to me. Yoda jumped up onto my shoulders as I caught the offered hand, Jango digging his legs against Alec's sides as he used his Mandalorian strength to fling me up into the air behind him. I landed roughly behind Fett's back, Alec grunting slightly from the added weight as he continued to gallope towards Irwin's hover car.

"Why are you still with us? We already proved we were more than a match for you back in the elevator!" I demanded with a hiss as I clamped a hand onto Jango's good shoulder, digging the barrel of my Phalanx into his side.

"Your friend and I made a deal, you get me off the station in one piece and I'll help you fight off the authorities along the way," Jango responded calmly, un-daunted by the weapon pressed against him.  
"Alec, this guy was ready to kill us half an hour ago!" I stated bewildered down to the moving horse.  
"Its a long story Axel, just believe me when I say we can trust him as far as getting off the Citadel goes," the stallion answered as it turned its head back towards us. I cast a dis-trustful glare at the back of Jango's helmet as I de-activated the pistol, clipping it to my belt.

We were now coming up on Irwin's car, which was a large bright red vehicle with a very sleek and advanced looking body structure. Alec let out a long whistle as he began to slow down, admiring the beautiful car.  
"So this is what the Viper of the future looks like," the Guardian joked. I gave a wide smile, not because the car looked good, but because we now finally had a clear avenue to freedom.

Suddenly I felt Yoda sharply tighten his grip on my shoulders.

"The commander has freed himself!" was all I could hear the Master shout before two pistol shots rang out. Alec shouted in pain as the rounds struck into his legs, causing the horse's front half to fall forward into a crashing somersault!

All of us yelled out as we were thrown from Alec's back, the speed in which he had been going at causing us to hit the floor in an un-controlled rolling skid of sorts. Jango actually hit the front end of Irwin's car as he flew forward, smashing against one of the front lights before crashing to the floor on his left side. Yoda grunted as he landed on his back several feet away from the bounty hunter, sliding to a halt cringing in pain.  
Alec flipped end over end as he finished his somersault, his large stallion body slowly starting to shrink back into his original form as he lay groaning on his side.

And as for me, I was thrown the farthest, smashing against the metal floor and bouncing a foot back into the air before coming back down in a human barrel-roll. If we had only been a few feet farther back this would have all been fine, but since Irwin's vehicle had been parked at the very end of the column closest to the parking-lot's guard railing, I was rolling directly towards the very edge of the platform.

Despite my best efforts to stop it, Alec's fall had thrown me forward with enough power to keep me rolling across the floor. My adrenaline skyrocketed as I caught sight of the railing glide over me as I rolled, the space between two of the many metal poles that held it up being big enough for my 6 foot long frame to pass through!

_"DAMMIT!"_ I shouted as I rolled over the edge of the platform, my hand lunging out with near super-human speed, my fingers desperately reaching out for the sharp metal.

(And that's the end of the story. I fell to my death and the Reapers took over, The End...nah I'm just messing with you!)

I jerked to a sudden stop, my legs and torso swinging back and forth as my hand grabbed onto the edge, dangling by my one arm. The currents of wind created by the lanes of Fast Transit cars that flashed over and under the platform blew against me, making my body sway from their force.

I had never really been afraid of heights when I was little, but the sight that I was greeted with when I looked down was more than enough to cause a pain in my chest from how fast my heart was beating.

"Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me!" I shouted out over the wind, my eyes glued to the endless swirling clouds of the Serpent Nebula below me, intertwined with the brilliant white glow of Widow that shone out from its center.

I couldn't decide which fate was worse, falling off and dying from the vaccum of space once I fell out of the Presidium's atmosphere bubble, or falling off and getting burned to a crisp from the pale white sun.

As more Transit cars flew around me, I could feel my grip on the platform's edge beginning to slip. Quickly I began reaching for the edge with my other hand, but the billowing wind was strong enough to keep me from grabbing hold. My fingers slipped a little bit farther, making me grimace from the strain it was causing on my muscles.  
_"Axel you still have your grappling hook!"_ Haxon ordered into my ear. My eyes shot over to the gauntlet on my left arm.

That could work, but I had forgotten to ask Irwin how to fire it!

* * *

Back up on the platform, the Turian commander had indeed managed to free himself, thanks to the help of the second Salarian agent that had been able to dodge Yoda's levitating car attack. At the moment both of them stood in the middle of the aisleway with their smoking pistols still pointed ahead of them, the commander having had to switch to his side arm since his rifle had been crushed after Yoda had left him pinned.  
The commander himself was clutching at his side with one hand, breathing through his mouth in ragged gasps from the damage the two cars had done to his body.

As the two advanced on the group of fugitives, they suddenly halted in their tracks. After recovering from his rough landing, Yoda had flipped himself back up to his feet and was now standing before them with his hands spread apart in a defensive posture. Off to the side Alec had just finished transforming back into his usual self, still gasping in pain as the wounds on his legs continued to heal.

As Yoda silently stared at the two, the Salarian agent suddenly squeezed his trigger, firing six rounds from his Kessler with the hope of catching the Jedi off guard! Yoda immediately raised both hands in front of his body, deflecting the shots one after the other off the center of his palms. Before either the agent or the commander could react, Yoda drew back one of his arms for a brief second before snapping it forward again, sending a rush of Force energy blasting out towards them.

The commander dived out of the way as the blast came at them, the Salarian getting hit full on in the front and thrown kicking and screaming several hundred feet back down the aisleway. Right away Yoda stretched out both his arms toward two parked cars on either side of the aisle, wrapping each in a Force grip as he slowly lifted them into the air.

The Turian hissed as he turned over on the floor, one hand still clamped onto his side while the other pointed his gun back at the Master. Only this time he didn't dare fire at him. Slowly turning his gaze towards the roof of the Presidium Ring above them, the commander froze as he saw the two levitating cars hovering fifteen feet overtop of him. Looking back at Yoda, he could see the small smirk stretched across the Jedi's face, along with a cocked eyebrow. The commander got the message right away, his jaw dropping slightly in horror.

"Uh uh, UH UH!" he uttered out, shaking his head quickly. Yoda's smirk widened as he lowered his hands slightly, causing the floating cars to jerk towards the floor, scaring the living daylights out of the commander in the process.  
"NO, no, nonono!" the Turian began to say frantically, dropping his pistol and extending out his hands in a sign of surrender.

The Jedi gave a short chuckle at the commander's distress before dropping his arms completely, allowing the two cars to plummet un-controllibly down to the floor!  
The commander cursed loudly as he sprang up to his feet. Despite his injuries he was able to scramble and dive out of the way as the two cars smashed onto the aisleway, both vehicles blocking the path between the Turian and the group.

"You do know those cars could have easily crushed him if they had just been a foot or so off, right?" Alec asked from the side, leaning against the hood of Irwin's car as he surveyed the damage Yoda had caused.  
"Fear not Alec, no intention of killing him I had. He is still alive and reasonably well, and now in no position to pursue us at the moment," Yoda answered as he turned toward the Guardian. Alec gave a wide smile as he agreed with that point.  
"Finally! That's the kind of news we want to hear, right Axel?" Alec bellowed, slapping his leg in victory as he turned his head over to where he had last seen the Bearer hit the floor.

Only he wasn't there.

Alec frowned, his cheery demeanor dropping as he turned his head from side to side, looking all over the area for any sign of him. After a few seconds he turned back to Yoda, both of them with equally confused looks on their faces.

"Where's Axel? And what's that _sound_?"

* * *

I was shouting at the top of my lungs to be heard over the sounds of the wind and traffic, trying to get the others attention as more blasts of vehicle created wake struck at me, my body swaying violently against their combined force. My left arm flailed around my head as I tried desperately to reach up for the edge, but the growing strength of the thickening Transit Lanes was adding more than enough air currents to keep me from doing just that. I felt like a piece of laundry on a damn clothesline, flapping in the breeze. Suddenly a heavy blast of air struck me as a large cargo truck flew overhead, causing me to lose my grip entirely and fall from the platform!

"NOOO!" I screamed as I dropped away from the edge, my arm still outstretched towards it, thinking this would be my last action in life.

But then, just before my hand was out of reach, Jango Fett's head and shoulders appeared over the edge, his right arm swinging down and grabbing onto my trailing forearm!

"What are you doing?" I called up to him, dumbfounded at this turn of events as I swung to the side, the bounty hunter already using his immense strength to pull me back up to the platform. I had definately not been expecting Jango of all people to show up at the last minute.

"You've got some of the answers to the questions I have, consider this a show of my sincerity in helping you get out of this place alive," Jango answered with a grunt as he brought me back up to the edge, helping me climb back onto the platform until we were both laying on our backs huffing and puffing from the exertion.  
"For the gods' sakes! I can't take my eyes off you for one minute!" Alec said in annoyance as he and Yoda rushed over to us, the Guardian helping me up to my feet while Yoda tended to Jango. I winced as I flexed the fingers that I had been holding onto the edge with, all of them throbbing from the strain I had put on them.

_"That was a close call Axel, if it is at all possible in the future, you and I should take some time to go through a proper tutorial of how to use your grappling hook,"_ Haxon said, sounding more than a bit perturbed at having nearly died along with me.  
"I'll definately mark that as a top priority once we get off the Citadel. As for right now, how do you use this thing?" I asked as I pulled out the electronic key from the pouch I had managed to slip it into during my flight through the parking-lot.

_"Sweep the key across the lazer mechanism on the driver's door, this while unlock and open the car,"_ Haxon explained. As Alec took Jango's arm and hooked it around his neck again, the four of us came over to the side of Irwin's sleek vehicle.

As instructed, I passed the key in front of a small black rectangle placed underneath the door's window. A small red lazer beam reached out and gently traveled back and forth along the key's length before disappearing. Suddenly a series of snap-hisses came as the doors on either side unlocked and retracted backwards, the roof detaching from the front and folding up, allowing us full access to the car's interior.  
"Neat," I said in amazement, both Alec and Yoda nodding their heads in agreement.

_"Identification confirmed: Welcome back Mr. Irwin, shall I prepare the car for take-off while you concoct your usual refreshment in the back?"_ came a distinct Australian voice from several speakers built into the dash-board.

"Hell yes! This a friend of yours Haxon?" Alec asked over to me, the offer of refreshments making him feel rather parched in the throat as a result of his fiery brawl with the Queen.  
_"Samuel is only a rudimentary Virtual Intelligence program for the car. He can't leave or even fly it himself, but he does manage private video-calls to and from the vehicle, while also providing security and entertainment during business flights across the Citadel,"_ Haxon explained.

"So he's like a virtual..._butler_, cool!"

"His voice sounds a lot like Irwin's," I remarked as I looked around the vehicle's inside.  
Now I could tell for sure that Irwin was a very wealthy man.

The interior was a unique blend of silver metal mixed with a smooth brown material that looked like oak wood, while a thin black carpet covered the entire flooring. The dash-board was also surrounded by this wood and metal, along with a myriad of different buttons and gagets spread out all along its face. There was even a large TV screen set up in front of a lever that ran in between the front passenger and driver seats, a lot like the hand lever that you would use on an automatic car or jeep.  
The cushioned seats themselves were covered in a rich brown leather. Looking farther back into the car, we could see that the back area was set up almost like a shortened limousine, with two seats sitting back to back against the driver and passenger, facing towards a single large seat situated underneath the rear window at the very back of the car. A small metal table could be seen positioned in-between the single seat and the two others.  
A small compartment glowed dimly behind a sliding glass door underneath the table, showing a refrigerated assortment of bottled drinks and ice cubes.

"To all those wishing to leave the Citadel, this is your final boarding call, please enter into our newly stolen vehicle in an orderly manner," I said in a stately voice with the air of a flight attendent as I made a short bow to the others, motioning with both arms toward the interior of the hover car.

Everyone, even Jango, gave a light chuckle as we made to get into the spacious car. Yoda hopped over into the front passenger's seat, his small size barely allowing his frog-like feet to extend out over the edge of the seat's cushioning, almost as if he were a small toddler.

As I sat down into the driver's seat, Alec helped Jango into the rear area, sitting himself and the bounty hunter onto the large seat furthest back.  
"Sooo...what do I do now Haxon?" I asked after a confused shake of my head as I began looking around the dash-board for a slot or hole of some kind to insert the key. I was also cocking an eyebrow as I scanned the baffling array of screens and controls before me, taking exta note at the utter lack of a steering wheel!

_"My take-off preparations are now complete, would you like me to start the car for you Mr. Irwin?"_ came Samuel's polite voice through the speakers in front of me and Yoda.  
"Uhh, yes, activate the car and seal all doors...Samuel," I ordered, throwing in the V.I.'s name as a courtesy.  
Immediately the roof folded back down over top of us, causing us to duck instinctively as it came down low to our heads.

"Hey, it's got a sun-roof back here," Alec mentioned from the back seat as he and Jango leaned forward to look up through the small rectangular window above them.

The inside of the car suddenly became darker as the doors on either side silently extended forwards, sliding back into their cradles and sealing around us with a hiss. The windows on the sides and at the back of the car were tinted, reducing most of the pale sunlight that was illuminating the edge of the parking-lot platform from Widow far below us. The tinted glass also helped to hide us from prying eyes, anyone who wanted to get a good look at the four of us would now have to look directly through the large windshield, which also carried a slight bluish tint near the top to help protect the driver's eyes while flying on sunny days.

As the final lock clicked the roof back into place, the engine rumbled to life, a deep smooth sound that vibrated throughout the car like the purr of a jungle cat. As the engine ran, all the electronics and gadgets across the dash-board suddenly lit up, casting a multi-coloured glow that slightly illuminated the area around me and Yoda, while making the rear section of the car seem even darking. As each appliance turned on, a light cold breeze began to blow out from several air vents tucted away all around the car's interior, dropping the temperature in the vehicle by one or two degrees.

"Ahhhh. I could get use to this..." Alec said with a relaxed sigh as he put his jackboots up on the table, crossing them at the ankles as he leaned back against the leather cushioning with his hands behind his head. Jango gave a slight wince as he reached up with his good arm and slid off his T-visored helmet, placing it on the floor at his feet.  
As I looked into the rear-view mirror attatched to the inner side of the windshield, I could faintly make out Jango's features through the cool darkness that engulfed the back seats.

As I had been expecting, his face was a spitting image of Temuera Morrison, the New Zealand born actor who had portrayed him in _Attack of the Clones_.

As the Temuera-Jango ran a gloved hand through his thick black hair, he too relaxed in the seat, letting his head fall back against the cushioned head-rest as he closed his eyes, exhaling an exhausted breath through his mouth.  
"You guys got to admit, Irwin know's how to fly in style," Alec said with an impressed cock of his eyebrow as he looked around the car's interior.

"I gotta get me one of these one day," I said with a small smile as I nodded in agreement to Alec's statement, more than impressed with each of the systems that glowed in front of me.

_"My records indicate that you are already in possession of three vehicles similar to this model Mr. Irwin, however if you wish to purchase another I shall send an inquiry to Citadel Transportation immediately,"_ stated Samuel's voice.  
"No that's fine Samuel, we're just gonna get under way now..." I began quickly, raising my right hand and pressing my palm against the dashboard.

"Right after a little Mind Mending..." I finished as I closed my eyes and willed the knowledge of the car to come to me.

Right away the ring lit up within my glove, causing my eyes to snap open as my body went rigid. Just like every other time, I began to see images flash before my eyes, along with codes and names, everything I needed to know was downloaded directly into my brain.

After a few seconds of this I finally relaxed, the ring's power fading away as I shook my head to clear my vision.

"What's Mind Mending?" Jango asked over to Alec.  
"The ring gives Axel the ability to download knowledge from creatures and machines, allowing him to learn everything he needs to know about them," Alec explained as he nodded his head over in my direction, still leaning back with his hands resting comfortably behind his head.

"Alrighty, so I need to press this..." I began as I tapped a button on the dash-board, using my newly attained knowledge to activate the thruster controls. All of us braced against our seats' armrests as the car suddenly lifted a few inches off the ground, gently bobbing slightly as it floated in the air. Reaching down and gripping the handle of the lever that ran in-between Yoda and I, I took a moment to give a wide smile of relief.

"Gentlemen, its been one rough journey since we came to this station, but I'm happy to say that we are now finally on the road to escaping," I announced as I looked at the other three, all of them showing a sign of their own relief at this uplifting news.

With an eager grip, I pressed my hand against the lever, slowly pushing it forward. The car hummed slightly as it accepted the acceleration, slowly creeping forward across the metal floor as it began to hover-taxi out of its parking zone.

But suddenly, as I pushed the lever just a little farther forward, a small red light lit up on the console next to where my hand was. Before I could do anything, Irwin's car suddenly accelerated up to full speed, sending us shooting across the aisleway and smashing our bumper straight into the back of the car parked ahead of us!

Our car came to a jarring halt, settling back down onto the platform with a deflating hum. After recovering from the rough stop, the three looked at me with confused glares, conveying their annoyance and silently telling me to not do that again.

"Alright, alright, this thing just takes a gentler touch is all," I reassured them as I tapped the button again, causing the car to hover off the ground once more. Wrapping my fingers around the lever, I gently pulled it backward this time, putting the car into reverse.

Smoothly the car began to glide back, pulling away from the car that we had dented. Seeing that everything was going well, I pulled the lever just a little bit farther back, intending to stop and redirect the car once we got back in our parking spot. Unfortunately the car suddenly made us jerk forward in our seats as it accelerated backwards, sending our rear thrusters crashing straight into the car behind us!

"Owww!" shouted Alec, his voice mixed with the grunts and gasps of pain coming from the rest of us as we all reached for our heads or the backs of our necks. "We're all gonna have a severe case of whiplash by the time this is over," I muttered with a wince as I massaged my neck.  
"I thought you said Mind Mending gave him the knowledge of how to drive this thing?" Jango painfully asked over to Alec, cracking his neck after massaging it as well.  
"Mind Mending _does_ give you the knowledge you're looking for, but it doesn't give you the experience, that's something you need to learn on your own," Alec answered as he rubbed his own neck, turning his gaze over to me.

"Although Axel, you're handling this like a teenager on his first driver's test."

My eyes narrowed as I spun around in my seat, glaring back at the Guardian.  
"You wanna fly this thing Alec? Be my guest!" I said to him as I jabbed a finger back at the dash-board, tapping the button that caused the car to hover again. Alec opened his mouth to say something but it caught in his throat when both Yoda and Jango turned their eyes on him also, awaiting his answer. Shrinking back into his seat, Alec spread his palms out before him in submission.

"Uhh, no, you're doing a great job."

"Now, third time's the charm. There's gotta be something I'm missing..." I said as I turned back to the controls, running through the knowledge I'd gotten from the car in my head to see if I had over-looked a step.

Barely a second after I had started this however, a pistol shot rang out as a blue thermal round glanced off the side of the car's hood!

"Whoa!" I shouted as Yoda and I ducked our heads instinctively, in-case the next shot went straight through the windshield.  
_"Alert: C-Sec weapon's fire directed at the vehicle, powering up kinetic barriers!"_ reported Samuel's voice.  
_"Those are only meant to hold off against blunt instuments, not thermal rounds!"_ stated Haxon.  
"Where did that come from?" asked Jango as both he and Alec placed a hand on their blaster pistols.

_"GET OUT OF THE CAR!"_ shouted a familiar Turian voice. I could hear Alec groan in annoyance as he and Jango raised their hands, as if surrendering. Peeking our eyes over the dash-board, Yoda and I also raised our hands as we sat up-right in our seats.  
Glaring at us through the windshield with his pistol pointed straight at me, the Turian commander limped towards us, having been able to climb over the barrier of smashed cars that Yoda had put in his way.

With his eyes still fixed on me, he came over until he was standing several feet directly in front of the car, now gripping his pistol with both hands as he trained it on my forehead  
"I'm through fucking around with you Axel, power down that vehicle and get out, or I put a shot straight through your head!" he ordered, his seething hatred of me spilling out with every word.

"He know's there's _four_ of us and only _one_ of him, right?" Alec asked.  
"Your friends stay inside..." the commander's voice immediately answered, reaching into the far back of the car. This perfect timing caused Jango to roll his eyes and shake his head, while Alec frowned in disappointment from his bad luck.  
"That always happens to me!"

As the commander and I stared at each other, the Turian pointed downward with the barrel of his gun, indicating the button on the dash-board to de-activate the hovering car. Slowly I lowered a hand towards the controls, keeping my other hand raised to reassure the commander that I was surrendering.

As my hand began moving toward the button that would set us back on the ground, I suddenly reached down and grabbed the acceleration lever, shoving it nearly all the way forward as I sent the car into high speed! The car immediately lurched forward, throwing us all back in our seats as it shot across the distance between us and the commander!

The Turian's eyes widened as he squeezed the trigger, firing off a single shot directed at me. However a millisecond before it could penetrate the windshield, a milky white see-through barrier suddenly flashed into existance across the glass, flickering into thin air after it deflected the round.

"Oh no," the commander uttered to himself before shouting out in pain, as the front of the car went into his shins and sent his body slamming down onto the hood. With half a second before we would smash into the car in front of us again, I sharply pulled back on the lever, briefly putting the car into reverse.

The two opposing directions of motion caused the vehicle to jar to a sudden stop in the middle of the aisleway, the force of it sending the screaming commander flying backwards off the hood, his body smashing into the back window of the car in front of us.  
All of us yelled out in pain as we were thrown forward as well, Jango and Alec both clearing over top of the table and slamming into the two seats in front of them.

Yoda and I both groaned as we lifted our heads up from the dash-board after having landed against it, in the Jedi's case he had to lift his whole body off. Rubbing my bruised cheek, I looked up through the windshield to see what had become of the commander. He had begun to slowly move his arms, picking himself out of the shattered window before losing all his strength and rolling lazily off the back of the car. As he landed with a hard thud on the metal floor, I could fainly hear him give a quiet groan of pain before his whole body went limp, not moving a muscle afterward.

I heard another groan next to my ear as Alec's arms came out from behind me, blindly grabbing onto the back of mine and Yoda's seats before he pulled the rest of his body up in-between us. As he shook his head to clear the pain he was feeling, Alec craned his neck over the dash-board to get a good look at the commander. At the sight of the officer laying on his front, seemingly dead, Alec's eyes widened and his jaw dropped an inch or two.  
"Did we just..."  
"No! No we didn't..." I began, cutting Alec off in mid-sentence. As I too craned my neck, I could make out the commander's back moving slightly, showing that he was still breathing and alive.  
"But he is going to be in the hospital for a few months," I finished with a slight wince of anxiety, imaging the first thing the commander would want to do after he recovered.

"Double time it, the commander's tracker is close by!" echoed out a gruff female voice as an entire platoon of Turian and Asari agents stormed into the parking-lot through the smoking alleyway.

Turning our heads in that direction, we could see the agents bobbing in and out of sight as they began to pick their way through the parked vehicles, some even climbing over them as they started coming closer and closer to us.  
"Come on, we gotta get out of here!" Alec whispered over to me as he pulled away to help Jango back into the far seat.

Frowning in concentration, my eyes began frantically searching across the dash-board for what I was missing to make the car fly properly. After Haxon began to point out some of the needed systems, it suddenly came to me.  
"_Right!_ Now I remember!" I said as I reached for a small knob sitting right next to the button that I had pressed to activate the thrusters.  
_"Axel! You only need to..."_ Haxon began urgently, but it was too late. Taking hold of the knob with my thumb and forefinger, I cranked it all the way to the max.

Suddenly the engine gave a high pitched groan as the thrusters on the bottom of the car sped up to full power, sending Irwin's vehicle shooting straight up into the air like a rocket-ship!

_"...turn that thing half way!"_ finished Haxon as we were all flattened against our seats, G-Force pinning us down as the car continued to blast upwards.  
"People, the roof above us is becoming a lot more detailed!" shouted Alec over the whine of the engine, his body having become pinned to floor underneath the car's sun-roof, allowing him to see the roof of the Presidium Ring rapidly closing in on us as the car went further up!_  
_

_"Axel, you have to turn the knob back!"_ Haxon shouted in my ear. Using all my strength against gravity, I managed to lift up one hand and grab the knob, turning it halfway to the left. Immediately the car jumped to a stop, hovering high in the air only a hundred feet below the Presidium roof. All of us yelled out in pain again as our heads, or bodies in Alec's case, slammed into the roof of the car, the sudden stop having sent all of us flying up from our seats or the floor.

"And that is why seat-belts were invented. I think now is a great time to make use of those ancient devices..." I said after rubbing my sore head, earning a collective series of nods from the other three as we all reached for the said belts, fastening them across our chests or waists.

_"GIVE THEM A VOLLEY!"_ shouted the female leader of the platoon far below us. I barely had a second to look over through Yoda's side window when a barrage of blue thermal rounds began to explode in front of us, causing us to duck our heads instinctively in-case any rounds shattered through the windows!  
The rounds were impacting all around our floating car, most of them shooting past us and sinking into the Presidium roof just over top, while some others began slamming into the underside of Irwin's car, impacting against the kinetic barriers that Samuel had erected after the commander had first shot at us.

However, as the rounds rippled away after each hit, the barriers began to glow red before flickering and disappearing, allowing a few of the rounds to actually hit the body of the vehicle! _"Warning: Kinetic barriers decreasing to 25%, recommend immediate evasion!"_ reported Samuel's voice as sparks began to explode out from underneath us.  
"GO!" Jango shouted behind me. Without needing any further motivation, I grabbed the handle of the acceleration lever and rammed it forward, roaring the engine as the car blasted in the same direction. As we sped through the air across the parking-lot, the Turian and Asari agents followed us with their rifles, continuing to pump out round after round in an attempt to bring us down!

_"This car isn't a tank Axel, we need to dodge that fire!"_ Haxon warned. I nodded as my fingers began to dance across the controls in front of me, my brain running into overdrive as I tried to correctly use everything the Mind Mending had taught me. With one hand I took hold of a floating circular hologram in front of one of the many screens on the dash-board, rotating it to the right while with the other I pressed several glowing buttons underneath it.

However, these actions only succeeded in sending the car spinning into a careering barrel roll!

Although it moved us briefly out of the following barrage of thermal rounds, all us were now holding onto our armrests or seat-belts to keep from getting tossed around, the car continuing to roll towards the many stores that were connected to this lot!

"I don't think _this_ is what he meant!" shouted Alec as he pressed his hands against the ceiling, all of us beginning to feel somewhat queezy from the constant spinning, our visions becoming dizzy from the swirling blurr that was now our surroundings.  
"Look out!" Yoda warned over to me as he pointed through the windshield, just managing to make out the back walls of the stores getting dangerously close with each rotation.

I gritted my teeth as I manipulated the car again, rotating the hologram in the opposite direction. The car slipped out of its rotations just in time, turing vertically onto its left side as I brought us away from the stores in a wide curve, the underside of the vehicle flashing with sparks as it scraped against the metal walls for a few seconds before we managed to pull away.

Down on the ground, the platoon of agents continued to fire after the stolen vehicle, many of them climbing up onto the rooves of the parked cars to get a better line of sight on the terrorists. Many others however were beginning to look at each other with stunned expressions as they watched the car roll through the air across the parking-lot.

* * *

"Who the hell is this guy? He's driving like a _maniac_!" an Asari agent asked over to one of her Turian co-workers.  
"Maniac or not, we're losing them!" the Turian shouted over his shoulder as he and the rest of the platoon began to run through the aisles or jump from car to car, trying to get to better firing positions as the flying car continued to speed out of range.

"Out of my way!" barked the leader of the platoon, an Asari captain dressed in a tight black leather jump-suit fitted with armour plates. She was a powerful Biotic who had once served as an Asari commando in her youth, earning promotions easily because of her ruthlessness and abilities. Now she was going to apply that same ruthlessness to put an end to Axel and his band of anarchists!  
Jumping up onto the roof of a nearby vehicle, the captain looked up at the fleeing car, her body beginning to flare with a blue Biotic haze.

Raising her arms above her head, the captain summoned all of her strength, causing a flux of blue tendrils to flow off of her suit and stream through her fingers, collecting together into a shining sphere of Biotic energies.  
All of the other agents moved away from her as she drew her arms to one side, maintaining the sphere within her grasp. Then with a shout of effort, she lunged her arms forward, throwing the glowing ball of energy from her hands up towards the escaping car. As the sphere left her fingers, a powerful blue shockwave blasted outward, accompanying the shooting ball in its wake!

* * *

"Uhh, driver! Evil blue ball of fury at six o'clock!" Alec said up to the front as he and Jango looked through the back window, seeing the raging Biotic sphere and the shockwave behind it rapidly closing the distance between us!

"Hold on!" I said to everyone as I tapped into the controls. Suddenly the car's nose dropped downward, sending us into a steep dive towards the platform! The sphere and its shockwave flashed over top of us, just missing the back thrusters of Irwin's car as we dived out of its path. The sphere continued on its way, slamming into the Presidium Roof seconds before the shockwave followed it. Beams and cables snapped apart from the force of the hit, the shockwave blasting them from their fittings and sending down an avalanche of debris plummeting toward the parking-lot.

"Come on, pull up, pull up!" I quickly said to myself, my hands typing frantically at the controls as I tried to pull the car back up into the air before we could smash into the columns of vehicles below us!

With a quick flip of the hologram, I managed to force the car to change into a steep climb, pulling us up away from the platform in a huge U, skimming the rooves of the parked cars below us seconds before the rain of debris smashed down onto where we had once been!

"You're gonna get us _killed_ if we keep flying like this!" Jango said from the back as more debris smashed down behind us, shattering and crushing many of the cars we had just flown over.  
"_I know_! I remember something from the Mending about a direct override, a system that would help me steer this thing better," I said after I was able to barely level out the car, my eyes searching across the dash-board again.  
"Samuel, can you activate something called the _'direct manuel steering'_ system?" I asked after we had managed to fly away from the area of falling debris, which also meant we had succeeded in escaping the rifle range of the C-Sec agents.

_"Please provide the security pass-phrase to enable direct manuel steering,"_ stated Samuel. I let out a groan of annoyance as I pinched the bridge of my nose.  
"So now its a pass-_phrase?"_ I asked angrily, having half the mind to take out my Phalanx and put a bullet straight through the controls.  
_"Don't worry, I remember this one,"_ reassured Haxon.

_"Samuel, security pass-phrase: _'Bruce is the better driver'_."_ Haxon ordered to the V.I.

_"Security pass-phrase accepted, direct manuel steering on-line."_ Suddenly a hidden compartment in the floor slid open between my feet. A black joystick connected to a metal column extended up until it was level with the my abdomen.

"Now _this_ I can drive!" I said with a grin as I wrapped both hands around the stick.  
"Good, cause' we're about to run out of _road_!" said Alec as he pointed towards the windshield. Snapping my head back up from the controls, I reared in surprise as I saw what he was talking about. Directly in front of us were several levels of platforms, rising up from the end of the parking-lot one on top of the other towards the Presidium roof. Along each there was a walkway that turned onto a connecting corridor, which allowed citizens and patrolling agents to walk along the outside of the Presidium Ring and take in the beautiful view of the Citadel Tower as they travelled.

As we soared directly toward this wall of platforms, the civilians moving along the walkways began to scream and run in different directions once they saw us coming.  
Grunting with effort, I yanked the stick into its far left corner, pulling the car into an arching left turn seconds before we could make contact with the wall.

Unfortunately we had already been too close to one of the platforms, which resulted in us turning onto its walkway and flying straight into the groups of people running across it!

Immediately I grabbed the acceleration lever and pulled it back, slowing the car down as the screaming civilians continued to run in front of us, desperately trying to get away from our front bumper as we came closer and closer to them.  
"Pull us up!" Yoda ordered as he pointed toward the ceiling. As I pulled the joystick back, the car went into a climb, causing us to narrowly fly overtop of the fleeing civilians as we went higher into the air.

Our relief at having not hit anyone was short-lived, for suddenly the car jerked downward as our roof slammed and began scraping against the bottom of the walkway over top of us! Baring my teeth, I shoved the stick down, which forced the car to drop back down to the first walkway before I pulled up again. The scattering citizens dived to the ground as the underside of our car shot over them, grazing several people in the back.

"There's the edge! If we can just fly over that we can make it to the Fast Travel lanes!" Alec pointed out as we all looked up ahead. As we blasted over more people who managed to dive to the ground, I could see the end of the walkway as it turned into its side corridor. Behond that was the cloudy expanse of the Serpent Nebula and the rest of the Presidium Ring on the far side. As we had seen before, two opposing lanes of hover cars and other vehicles flashed along the side of all this.

Finally, we had a clear shot at escape!

As the last civilian in our path dived to the ground, I took hold of the lever and pushed it forward again, making the car bolt as it was restored to its previous speed. As I began to gently pull back on the joystick, intending to raise the car up to clear over the guard-railing that ran along the outside of the walkway, three Turian C-Sec agents suddenly dashed out in front of us from the side corridor!

_"AHHHHH!"_ all of us shouted out in panic as I pushed the stick down, forcing the car to become level with the walkway again so as to cause as little damage as possible. The Turians shouted also, their eyes bulging once they saw us shooting towards them, knowing that there was nothing they could do to avoid getting hit!

In a great barrage of heavy thuds that shuddered throughout the car, the vehicle slammed into the three agents, causing cries of pain to mix in with the sounds of their bodies rolling over the hood and roof as we ploughed through them!

All of us braced ourselves as the car smashed through the guard-railing, causing sparks to shoot off the hood as we tore through the metal, blasting our way out of the Market District and into open space.

_"Sorry!"_ Alec called back apologetically to the three rapidly shrinking men as they lay moaning in pain on the walkway.

Suddenly he was thrown back in his seat as I jerked the car from side to side, using the joystick to maneuver us through the chaotic Fast Travel lane that we had driven into. Weaving under and over through several dozen of the thousands of cars flying through the lane, I pulled the stick into a hard right, causing us to exit our current lane and enter into the next one just ahead of us.

Luckily this lane was going in the same direction we were, allowing me to easily pull up into a clear space amidst the waves of cars and fly within the flow of traffic.  
After flying for a few tense seconds, silently waiting for anything else to happen, I leaned back in my seat and blew out a relieved breath.

"We made it? We actually made it! Samuel I think I will take you up on that refreshment now!" Alec cheered loudly from the back, shaking a stunned Jango's hand in congratulations.

After a short click, the sliding glass door covering the refrigerated compartment beneath the middle table slid open, allowing Alec access to the assortment of bottles and ice-cubes stored within.  
"Ah finally some water, I've been dying of thirst ever since we landed in the park," Alec said with relief as he reached in and retrieved a glass bottle of clear liquid. As he un-corked and brought the bottle to his lips, a thought suddenly came to me.

"Uhh, Alec I don't think that's water!" I said quickly as I spun around to him. But he had already sloshed down a few gulps.

Immediately the Guardian's eyes widened, his cheeks bulging for a moment before he turned his head to one side and spat out everything that had been in his mouth! As the liquid sprayed all over the side of the car, Alec began coughing un-controllibly as he roughly put the now empty bottle back in the table compartment.  
"That's _not_ water..." he managed to utter out painfully through each sputtering cough.

_"No, that was the last of Mr. Irwin's private stash of gin, which you have now used to re-decorate the interior of the vehicle,"_ Haxon sighed in a disappointed tone. Yoda, Jango, and I all chuckled at the situation as Alec began to breath normally.  
"Guess it wasn't up to your...tastes," I began joking to Alec, when suddenly my eye caught sight of an ornate compact spear sticking out from behind his back. The mirth in my voice died as I recognized the details and structure of the weapon, having seen that kind of spear several times in a certain movie.

"Alec, what is that?" I asked humourlessly, deciding to let him explain for himself since I already knew what it was. As he looked down at the spear, Alec scrunched his eyes closed for a moment as if in pain, knowing that he had been caught.  
"Now, I can explain..." he began as he raised his hands in defense.

"Where did you get it?" I asked him, this time more firmly.  
"The Xenomorphs were attacking and my powers weren't enough to take them all on effectively, so I had to borrow this for a while to help C-Sec fight them off," he said as he inclined his head to the back window, indicating the parking-lot that had now shrunk far behind us.  
"Borrowed it from _who_?" I nearly barked at him.

"There was a Predator in the Corridor who was also fighting the Xeno's, in the middle of the battle he dropped his spear and I picked it up. Now watch where you're driving!" Alec shot back before pointing toward the windshield.  
Turning myself back to face the front, I sharply pushed down on the control for a brief moment before pulling back up, causing us to dip down and fly under a pack of slower moving cars that we had been about to slam into.

As we sped under dozens more cars, continuing down the lane to where-ever it led, I cast a quick glance into the rear view mirror to look back at Alec.  
"By Predator you _do_ mean: seven foot tall, dreadlocked, nasty temper, skins humans type Predator _right_?_!_" I posed angrily back to him as I drove the car around the side of a large cargo vehicle.

"It gave us covering fire from the catwalks, if it hadn't shown up when it did we may very well have lost that battle, and the Queen would be making this place her own well stocked nesting ground by now," explained Alec as he leaned back in his seat, indicating the rest of the Presidium Ring that shot past us as we flew through the lane.

Alec's words caused me to do a double take.  
_'It was firing from the catwalk...'_

"Wait, you mean it was _helping_ you?" I asked in minor shock, that idea of the iconic human-hunting aliens leaving me more than a bit skeptical. But suddenly another thought came to me, a bit far-fetched but now solid enough considering everything that Alec was telling me. Keeping my eyes on the countless cars that we continued to steer past, I slid my hand into one of the small pouches on my utility belt, blindly searching around for a few seconds before my fingers grabbed onto the strange tranquilizer dart that had saved me from getting arrested back in the Corridor.

"Here, compare the markings on this with anything you find on that spear, I got a hunch that its probably from the same owner," I said as I tossed the dart over my shoulder to the back of the car. Alec caught it in one hand while he used his other to pull out the compact spear and hold the two side by side. After a few minutes of closely inspecting the symbols carved into each weapon Alec let out a satisfied 'hum', placing the spear in his lap as he flipped the dart around in-between his thumb and forefinger.  
"Well it does seem to match what's on the spear, where did you get this?" he asked up to me as he continued gazing at the dart.

"I took it out of a Turian agent's neck, the one that tried to arrest me when I made my break for Irwin's store," I said. Right away Yoda gave a croaking chuckle as he pointed a finger back at Alec.  
"Told you I did, that not Axel it was who took down that agent!" he said as he continued chuckling. Alec rolled his eyes as he placed the dart on the table in front of him. This was a new turn of events that I couldn't quite grasp.

Why would a Predator be helping us?

"But still Alec, you have my memories, so you know that taking the spear from a Predator is like taking the katana from a samurai!" I stated after pushing my thoughts to the back of my mind as I turned my neck to look back at him.

"It's going to want that weapon _back_, with a _vengence_! It may even by tracking us right now to get it!" I nearly shouted at him as I turned back to the windshield, the ramifications of Alec's thievery looking even more grave by the minute.

The Yautja were not known for their mercy, and now we probably had one stalking us for insulting it in one of the worst ways possible!

"I didn't have time to go and look for it so I could return its damn property, if I had done that then we would all be sitting in a C-Sec detention-cell right now, possibly awaiting a _death sentence_!" Alec retorted back to me as he indicated all of us with a sweep of his arms.  
Before I had a chance to respond to that, Samuel suddenly interjected.

_"Excuse me Mr. Irwin, but your voice has been quite elevated since you entered into the vehicle, are you feeling feverish? If so, I can plot your driver a route to the nearest medical-clinic for any services that you may require."_

I frowned at that for a moment, the sudden beginnings of a plan forming in my head.

"Actually no Samuel, but would you be able to plot us a course to the Military Docking platforms?" The large screen set up in the center of the dash-board suddenly sprang to life, showing us a detailed holographic profile of the entire Presidium. After rotating and then enhancing the screen, a glowing red line appeared, starting from the car's current position within the travel lane, and extending outward across a quarter of the Ring, ending with a blinking red dot amongst dozens of large docking piers jutting out from the circumference.

_"The Military Docking area is just over seven kilometers away from the car's current position. At present speed, you will arrive there within twelve minutes,"_ reported Samuel's voice. I gave a thin smile of acceptance, this was a lot more than what we had a moment ago.  
"Alright, I've got a plan. We drive to the Docks un-detected, set down near an un-occupied ship, I Mind Mend with it and then we get the hell off the Citadel!" I explained to the other three, motioning with my hand to indicate each step in the plan.

"Hold up a second, what about Shepard?" asked Alec as he leaned forward. Both Yoda and Jango looked at the Guardian while I cast a glance at him in the rear view mirror.

"We don't know where he is or what stage he's at in his investigation of Saren. If we leave now without keeping tabs on him, we could be blindly searching all over the galaxy for any sign of where he'll go next when he finally starts hunting the Turian down," Alec pointed out to all of us, causing me to nod in agreement while making Jango and Yoda look at each other in confusion.  
"Do we know for certain that he's already started his investigation?" I asked, still keeping my eyes on the cars in front of me.  
"After our little fight with the Xenos, we learned from one of the C-Sec agents that Shepard had only just stated his accusations against Saren a little over half an hour ago," answered Alec. My eyes widened with sudden hope as I snapped my fingers, a hunch coming to me.

"He would have needed Ambassador Udina to put those charges forward, which means me may have only recently gotten into his audience with the Council!" I said quickly over to Alec. The Guardian thought it over for a moment, as if searching through my memories before his eyes widened, his head nodding.

"Its possible!"

"Haxon, is there a way for you to hack into any cameras set up within the Council Chambers?" I asked quickly, lightly pressing two fingers against my ear.  
_"Not through the main circuits no, all of the main systems within the Chamber have been heavily fortified to resisit such hacking in case of a rouge A.I. getting lose on the Citadel,"_ said Haxon, his tone sounding almost insulted by such a notion.  
_'I wonder what they'd say if they knew how useful those safeguards are going be against a Reaper A.I.?'_ I thought to myself, thinking ahead to the impending attack that Sovereign would unleash upon the station not long from now.

_"However..."_ began the A.I., this time with an odd tone to his voice that made me think he was leading up to something.  
_"Mr. Irwin did install his own hidden cameras within the Chamber several years ago, to which he uses to monitor the Council whenever large political matters are being discussed in seclusion."_

"Smart! But I gotta ask, what kind of a person _is_ Irwin? So far from what I've seen, the guy's got money, a sweet car, he can house A.I., and he's got his own personal cameras tucked away in one of the most secure places on this whole station!" Alec asked Haxon, listing off everything he'd gathered about Steve Irwin so far.

"Trust me, there's more to it than that, the guy's a _character_ to say the least," I added in with a chuckle as I pulled the car into a wide speeding arc, passing around in front of a huge block of cars and cargo transports.  
"So Haxon, can you activate those cameras to see if Shepard is in the Council Chambers?"  
_"One moment..."_ the A.I. answered as he began searching through the car's connected systems.

The hologram of the Presidium disappeared from the large screen, suddenly being replaced by a coloured image of the Council Chambers, exactly the way I had seen them in the first game. The camera we were looking through seemed to be gazing down on the Chamber from a high vantage point, most likely hidden next to the large rectangular window that the three Citadel Councilors would usually stand in front of.

At the moment there actually was a meeting going on between the Turian, Asari, and Salarian Councilors, who had their backs turned to the camera as they stood behind their three consoles. Down below in front of them on the rectangular platform that allowed speakers to address the Council directly, stood three other people. All of them were Human!

"I think we found him! Haxon can you switch us to a closer camera, this one isn't picking up anything they're saying," I said quickly as Yoda leaned in to see the screen for himself, while Jango and Alec unbuckled their seat-belts and came to sit in the chairs in front of them, leaning their heads out from behind the front seats to get a better view as well.

Suddenly the screen changed its perspective, switching to another hidden camera that gave us a much closer view across the glass covered pit that the Council and Human speakers were standing over. From here we could see the three Councilors standing on their high platform, while off to the left we could see the side profiles of the white suited Donnel Udina and blue uniformed Captain David Anderson!

"That's them! But where's Shepard?" Alec asked as he, Jango, and Yoda began searching for where the third Human had gone to. I didn't need to search however, I knew Shepard was standing just out of the camera's field of view, he would reveal himself when the time came.

At the moment I was more interested in the 20-foot tall faded hologram of Saren Arterius that stared down menacingly at Udina and Anderson from the far corner of the Chamber! (Man, even as a hologram this guy looked like something out of a horror movie.)

Saren was every bit the machine mixed organic that he was in the game, his entire left arm resembling that of a Geth's, made up of metal plates, tendons, and interlinking wires. Sharp metal implants wove in and out of his cheek mandibles and head fringes, along with several thick cables and wires lacing out of the chest area of his patched white Spectre armour.  
But it was his eyes that had always gotten to me, even when playing the game. Those shining, un-feeling eyes that glowed bright blue in darkened areas. Even now when speaking through a hologram, those eyes seemed to gleam venomously as he continued to stare between the Councilors and the Humans.

"...some concern, but there is nothing to indicate that Saren was involved in any way." The Asari Councilor was finishing her statement as she spoke to Udina, casting a glance up at Saren as she did. Keeping my attention mostly focused on flying the car, I began casting occasional glances down at the screen to see and hear what else the hidden camera was picking up from the meeting.

"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason," said the Turian Councilor with a slight shake of his head. Just like in the game, this information only seemed to infuriate Ambassador Udina.  
"An eye-witness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood!" the Irishman said gruffly with a short swiping hand gesture.

"We've read the Eden Prime reports, Ambassador. The testimony of one traumatized dock worker is hardly compelling proof," the hooded and robed Salarian Councilor said flatly.  
"He's right, that wouldn't even hold up in a Republic court either," Jango said from behind me, which promptly earned him a collective _'Shhh'_ from the rest of us as we continued to watch the meeting unfold.

_"I resent these accusations. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre, and a friend."_ Saren's voice was just as smooth and yet grainy as I remembered it, making me think that just like the rest of his body, his voice had taken on that distinct characteristic after he had allowed himself to be infused with synthetic parts.

"That just let you catch him off-guard!" Capt. Anderson interrupted, casting an accusing finger up toward the holo-Saren.

_"KEITH DAVID!"_ Alec nearly shouted with joy, having recognised the actor's deep-smooth voice coming from Anderson as he leaned in even closer towards the screen.  
_"SHHH!"_ all of us directed at him as we turned back to the screen.

_"Captain Anderson. You always seem to be involved when Humanity makes false charges against me,"_ Saren said in mock recognition as he looked down towards Anderson. After a brief second of staring between the two men, Saren folded his large arms and turned his head down to someone outside of the camera's field of vision.

_"And this must be your protege, Commander Shepard. The one who let the beacon get destroyed."_ The Turian let out that final statement with a sort of disgusted, goading tone.

Suddenly a well built man, standing at about 6-feet tall and suited in jet black N7 armour came up beside Anderson, staring up defiantly at the giant visage of the Spectre-traitor.

I couldn't help but blow out a frustrated breath. From the angle the camera was set up at, Shepard's back was turned to us, concealing his face from view and preventing us from seeing what he looked like! All that we _could_ see from this perspective was that he had short, slightly wavy black hair similar to Jango's.

"The mission to Eden Prime was top secret. The only way you could know about the beacon was if you were there!" Shepard said up to Saren, also pointing a finger up at the hologram. Just as Alec and I had been expecting, Shepard spoke with the usual voice of Mark Meer, the Canadian actor who had portrayed him.

_"With Nihlus gone his files passed on to me. I read the Eden Prime report...I was un-impressed,"_ Saren answered, still with that same goading tone to his voice, now added with an un-mistakable smuggness. Turning his head over to the three Councilors below him, Saren indicated towards the three men on the lower platform.

_"But what can you expect, from a _Human?"

Shepard took a step forward on one leg, turning his gaze toward the Council members as he pointed up at Saren again.  
"Saren despises Humanity, that's why he attacked Eden Prime," the Commander stated matter-of-factly. Saren narrowed his deadly synthetic eyes as he bent slightly down toward the Human, as if trying to intimidate him.

_"Your species needs to learn its place Shepard. You're not ready to join the Council..."_ Saren began before slowly straightening back up, as if savouring every moment of this verbal abuse he was dishing out.  
_"You're not even ready to join the _Spectres_!"_

Anderson and Shepard said nothing, both men seeming to be keeping their cool even in the face of that nasty statement. But Udina only seemed to be getting more and more red faced as the conversation dragged on.

"He has no right to say that! That's not _his_ decision!" Udina finally growled after Saren had finished, slamming the bottom of his fist down onto the glowing orange console in front of him.  
"Shepard's admission into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting," the Asari Councilor said firmly up to Saren, as if reminding him to remember his own place in these proceedings. However, the Spectre only scoffed at her tone as he shot his gaze back down to the three.

"_This meeting _has _no purpose. The Humans are wasting your time Councilor, and _mine_,"_ Saren stated with a flippant hand gesture as he returned his venomous glare towards Shepard and Anderson.

"Saren's hiding behind his position as a Spectre, you need to open your eyes," Shepard insisted to the Councilors.  
"What we need is evidence, so far we've seen nothing," remarked the Salarian Councilor as he gestured a hand toward the useless banter going on between the Humans and the Turian.  
"There is still one outstanding issue; Commander Shepard's vision. It may have been triggered by the beacon," Anderson piped in, indicating his head over to his second-in-command as he cocked an eyebrow up at the Councilors.

Suddenly Saren threw his head back slightly, letting out a long and slow maniacal laugh!

Both the Humans and even the Councilors frowned at this odd behaviour during a serious meeting. Alec and I turned away from the screen and looked at each other with cocked eyebrows, both of us clearly as shocked as the other by this sudden change from the game's scripted scene.

"I don't remember him doing _that_ after Anderson gave his lines," Alec said. I shook my head in agreement.  
"I don't remember Saren laughing _at all_ during the game, even in some of his most evil moments," I stated as we both looked back into the screen. Unknown to me, Jango suddenly eyed the back of my head with a look of suspicion.

_"Are we allowing dreams into evidence now? How can I profess my innocence against _this_ kind of testimony!"_ Saren began after he had stopped laughing, pinching the bridge of his short plated nose in annoyance at the absurdity of Anderson's claim.

"I agree. Our judgement must be based on facts and evidence, not wild imaginings and reckless speculation," the Turian Councilor nodded alongside Saren as he gestured toward Anderson and Shepard.  
"Do you have anything else to add Commander Shepard?" the Salarian Councilor asked.

"You've made your decision, I won't waste my breath," Shepard stated flatly, with slight irritation mixed in if I was hearing correctly. The three Councilors looked at each other for a moment, all of them shaking their heads in silent consensus.

"The Council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren, and the Geth. Ambassador, your petition to have him disbarred from the Spectres is denied," the Asari Councilor announced to the Humans after she and her colleagues had reached an agreement.  
Udina seemed to de-flate as he looked down at the floor, shaking his head in defeat.

_"I'm glad to see justice was served,"_ Saren said with a small mocking nod toward Shepard and Anderson. Soon after that the Turian's enormous hologram faded away and vanished, severing his connection with the Council.  
"This meeting is adjourned," the Asari Councilor said before she and the two others turned to leave. Down on the speaker's platform, Udina simply hung his head as Shepard and Anderson turned towards the stair-case behind them, leaving the Ambassador to himself for a moment.

Unfortunately, we still weren't able to get a glimpse of the Commander's face, due to Anderson stepping in front of him at the last minute before the two men left the camera's field of view.

"Okay, so now we know where he is, and more importantly we know where he's going to be later on," Alec said as the screen de-activated. "He's gotta find Garrus to get the evidence he needs on Saren. He'll either go to Barla Von in the _Embassy District_, or to Harkin in _Chora's Den_," I said with a nod as I continued to fly the car. That's when Jango finally stepped in.

"Okay, what the hell is going on! How do you two know what is or is not going to happen next?" the bounty hunter snapped at us both. Yoda didn't say a word, but I could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

"And what did you mean when you referred to this as a _game_?"

I closed my eyes in annoyance, remembering too late that I hadn't told them where all this had come from.  
_'How do I explain this? Oh yeah by the way, we've been brought to the universe of a video game, and you two are really characters taken out of a movie saga...'_

"There's more we have to tell you, about this galaxy, and the reason why you were..." I began solomnly, when suddenly, _SCRANNCH!_ The sound of metal scraping on metal screamed throughout the interior as something slammed into the roof of the car, causing us to shout out as the vehicle was forced down through the air out of the travel lane!  
"What was _that_?" shouted Alec as he and Jango held onto the backs of our seats, the car shaking from side to side as I fought against the joystick to bring it back up. As we leveled out, I pulled back on the stick, bringing us back up towards the travel lane. But as we did, Yoda noticed something.

"Look, breaking away from us traffic is," the Jedi said as he pointed up through the windshield. All of us leaned towards the dash-board, slightly crowding the driver's area as we craned our necks to see what Yoda was talking about. Sure enough, as we flew closer to the lane, the lines of cars and transports had begun to quickly speed away from us, rapidly breaking off in different directions almost as if they were trying to avoid something.

As we came back up to where we had been before that un-known object had hit us, we were suddenly hit _AGAIN_!

"What is going on up there?" I shouted as I maneuvered the car into a curving left, my right hand clamping down on the acceleration lever and shoving it to the highest notch possible. As the engine screeched its familiar noise I had heard most flying cars give off in Mass Effect 2, I could hear a deep thundering rumble echo out around us as we shot through the dispersing travel lane, growing louder as whatever had hit us increased its own speed to keep up.

"Can anyone see what it is?" I asked as my eyes focused souly on what was ahead of me, my hands clamped around the joystick as I dodged the car from side to side, avoiding many of the fleeing vehicles too slow to get out of our way as we shot forward, the full power of the car's acceleration giving us unparalleled speed!

"Uhhh, if you want the _short_ version, we've got a giant flying Manta Ray after us!" Alec replied as he looked out through his side window, he and Jango having already bolted back into the far seat.  
"What?" I asked in confusion as I turned my head to look out through Yoda's window. The thundering rumble of our attacker's engines had passed over us as it moved off onto our right side, flying in between us and the rest of the Presidium Ring.

This effectively cut off any chance of us landing at the Military Docks once we arrived in the next few minutes!

My eyes widened once I saw what the Guardian was talking about. The giant ship did indeed look like some armoured Frankenstein image of a Manta Ray, bristling with cannons along its wings and being propelled through the cloudy air on four large repulsors.  
"Haxon, what the hell is that thing!" I barked as I weaved the car around several more lingering vehicles, the enormous ship keeping pace with us the entire time!

_"It is an F-56 Ray class gun-ship, one of the newest models in the Citadel defense fleet. But only a small handful of them have come off the assembly lines since its unveiling last year, if we have one of these after us then someone with a lot of pull in C-Sec's chain-of-command must be overseeing this pursuit personally!"_

"You think Bailey's back at us again?" Alec called up from the back as he held onto his seat, the car jerking up and down as we continued to dodge traffic.  
"He's only a lieutenant right now, it's gotta be someone higher up, someone who could authorise that powerful of a vehicle to be used in Presidium air-space," I answered back to him, never taking my eyes from the windshield.  
"So Executor Pallin could be on that ship?"  
"I wouldn't be surprised, we've been causing more than enough damage to get _his_ attention."

Suddenly a chorus of loud sirens screamed out behind us, the sudden flashes of red and blue that entered into the car through the back window signalling that C-Sec was onto our tail!

"Oh look, the Citadel's tax dollars at work are coming to arrest us," Alec said morbidly as he looked back through the window, counting up to six blue hover-patrol cars speeding after us.

* * *

"We have them on our left sirs! Patrol cars are in pursuit as per your orders!" reported one of the pilots over to Chellick and Bailey. The Turian was busy cleaning a bright red Striker sniper rifle, to which he activated with a quick nod once the report was given.  
"Keep us within the Presidium's atmosphere bubble, and make sure we stay level with them," Chellick ordered as he lifted the Striker and made his way over to the gunship's far wall.  
"Chellick, what are you doing?" Bailey asked as he followed the lieutenant.

"Agent, open this airlock!" Chellick barked over to one of the six Turian agents that stood near the wall operating a glowing console. With a nod, the Turian came over to a small orange key-pad built into the bulkhead. After imputing a short code, a concealed airlock split open down the center, sucking out all the air in the gunship as its interior adapted to the change in pressure.

"What are you_ DOING_!" Bailey shouted to be heard over the whistling wind, pressing a hand against the wall as he staggered from the suction. Chellick went down on one knee, bringing the scope of the sniper rifle up to his right eye as he aimed at the speeding car across from him.

"I'm going to force them down. Thompson, radio the patrol cars to fly ahead and land at the designated platform, the terrorists will be crashing there shortly!" Chellick said to Bailey before calling to the commanding pilot in the forward cockpit.  
"There are civilian vehicles all around us! You can't use live ammunition at these speeds!" shouted Bailey as he pointed a finger out to the hundreds of hover cars that the gunship continued to blow past.

"Concussive rounds Bailey! I would never use live ammunition while civilians were in the area," Chellick said up to him, using similar words to what the Human lieutenant had said back in the Presidium park.

* * *

"Axel, we got a _problem_ back here!" Alec called up to me, keeping his eyes on the screeching patrol cars that were still chasing us.  
"What is it?" I asked as I moved our car around several more vehicles. Suddenly I got my answer, as all six of the patrol car blasted over and around us, travelling ahead at an even faster speed than Irwin's car was capable of!  
"Where are they headed in such a hur..."  
"GET DOWN!" Alec shouted as he dived up from the back, shoving both mine and Yoda's heads down toward the dash-board.

Immediately afterward, a deep booming sniper shot rang out, impacting against the last kinetic barrier still operational. After the barrier flickered away, another shot rang out, shattering through the tinted side window and embedding itself in the door next to Jango. The bounty hunter quickly scooped up his T-visored helmet from the floor and secured it over his head. Alec let go our heads right after, to which I looked back up through the windshield in time to avoid smashing into another fleeing car.

"Well, we should be safe for another minute. Sniper rifles can only fire two shots before overheating right?" Alec asked, sounding slightly relieved as he sat down in the seat behind me.

Suddenly a _third_ sniper shot rang out, shattering through another section of the window and striking Jango in the side of the head!

The Mandalorian grunted in pain as he slumped sideways, his whole body going limp after the hit.  
"Shit!" I shouted as I pulled back on the stick, sending the car into a climb in order to get out of the sniper's line of fire. Unfortunately the Ray-gunship's repulsors blasted, sending it shooting up through the air, allowing it to keep pace with us.

"Is he alive!" I shouted back to Alec as he dived over to Jango's body, the whistling wind coming through the two holes in the window making it hard to be heard. Alec pressed two fingers against Jango's neck, waiting for a moment to see if he still had a pulse. After that moment had passed, Alec right away cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.  
"He's alive, and..._asleep_..._again_," the Guardian stated as he inspected the small dent in the side of the bounty hunter's helmet, where the round had ricocheted off of.  
Another shot shattered through the window, this time catching Alec in the back of his head!  
"OWWW! SON OF A BITCH!" he shouted as he grabbed his head with both hands, dropping to the floor writhing in agony.

Another shot went through the window, impacting into the seat just behind me, causing Yoda to duck his head and Alec to flinch.  
_"Warning: structural damage to the vehicle is nearing 12%!"_ alerted Samuel.  
"Haxon! How long before we reach the Military Docks?" I asked as I pressed the joystick forward, causing us to dive back down towards the scattering travel lane, the gunship following us the entire time.  
_"It will be approximately another two minutes before we enter into the docking zone, we just have to hold out until then!"_ Haxon said after the sniper's third shot rang out, telling us that it would be another minute before he could fire again.

"We won't last that long if we keep taking fire like this!" I said as I bared my teeth, pulling the stick from side to side or up and down in an attempt to shake gunship off.  
"Where there's a will, there is a way!" Alec announced as he reached up and took Jango's second blaster pistol from its holster. Getting up and crouching under Irwin's sun-roof, he also took out the other blaster from his belt, holding one in each hand.  
"What're _you_ gonna do?" I asked back to him. Alec drew back one of his arms and drove the barrel of the pistol straight through the glass, shattering the sun-roof completely.

"I'm gonna go make some friends!" he said with a grin as he began climbing out through the roof into the billowing wind. I tried shouting something to him, but he had already made his way out of the car.  
"I'm never going to understand that guy," I said over to Yoda as I turned back to the controls

* * *

"Whoooa!" Alec said as he tried bracing himself against the raging wind, the power behind it nearly throwing him off the car once he had fully climbed through the sun-roof. Slowly crawling over to the middle of the car, the Guardian carefully began to stand up, keeping himself as steady as he could against the the air currents and the constant motions of the vehicle as Axel continued to dodge around civilian transports.

_'I'm surfin' the Nebula!'_ Alec thought with a wide grin as he placed one foot ahead of himself, spreading his arms out to either side and hunching his back as if he were actually riding a surf board!

As the wind continued to press against his body, making the tunic of his SS uniform flap behind him, Irwin's car flashed by several scattering Fast Transit cars that were honking their horns angrily at the Guardian.  
"Yeah, same to you assholes!" Alec shouted back in a fit of road-rage, shaking a blaster at them as they shrank far behind.

Just then, another sniper shot boomed throughout the air, its thermal round grazing past the front of Alec's face. Staggering to his right, the Guardian narrowed his eyes as he looked over to the gunship across from him.  
"Sooooo, _you're_ the one who shot me in the head," Alec muttered to himself once he found the open airlock in the ship's side, taking extra note of the Turian C-Sec agent kneeling within it, a bright red sniper rifle pulled up to his shoulder. After firing another round, to which Alec ducked under, the sniper began tapping into the side of his rifle, setting it to an even higher setting!

"Alright then, you wanna play it like that, _SUCK ON THESE!"_ Alec shouted as he snapped both his arms forward, pumping the triggers on both of Jango's pistols! A barrage of red blasts slammed into the side of the ship, causing the Turian to jump back from the airlock as small explosions and smoke errupted across the hull.

"Return fire! Concussive rounds only!" shouted a familiar Human voice. Suddenly two other Turians and a grey haired man with a strange metal cast on his left arm popped out from the side, all of them firing pistols.  
_"Bailey!_ I was hoping to see you again!" Alec said with joy as he dropped down to the roof, laying across it on his stomach as the rounds whizzed over his head.

Stretching his arms out again, Alec pressed the buttons behind both of the pistols' barrels, setting the weapons to go full automatic.  
"Try this on for size," he said as he clamped down on the triggers, taking careful aim so that he wouldn't actually hit one of the agents by accident. Just like back in the parking-lot, a continuous stream of blasts spat out from the pistols, impacting all around the airlock.

The blasts succeeded in causing Bailey and the other agents to pull back into cover, while also creating a brief smoke screen that swirled into the interior of the ship, momentarily blinding them. Quickly standing up as best he could, Alec slid both pistols underneath his belt and drew out the Predator Combi-Stick. Taking a moment to steady himself, the Guardian flicked the small button on the mechanism with his thumb, causing both ends of the weapon to snap out into its spear form.  
Then, after tensing his muscles, he leapt from the roof of the car towards the gunship, clearing across the gap between them with almost super-human agility!

_"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"_ he laughed madly as he sailed through the air, twirling the spear over his head before stabbing one of its diamond headed points into the edge of the airlock, a loud metallic _thunk!_ ringing out as his body weight landed down on the spear.  
As the Guardian hung with both hands on the Combi-Stick, swaying erratically in the wind, one of the Turian agents poked his head back out through the airlock to see where the criminal had gone. Alec grinned evilly as he swung his body up from the spear like a professional gymnast, the bottom heels of his Nazi jackboots surging forward and smashing straight into the Turian's face!

The agent shouted out as he was knocked backwards into the ship, collapsing to the floor with Alec landing right in front of him, his legs and arms bent and spread apart with the spear held above his head at the ready, having been pulled out from the hull after the Guardian had swung up.

"So gentlemen, which of you was the one shooting at us just now?" Alec asked politely to the six other Turians who had now abandoned their posts to encircle him, each with a weapon raised.  
"That would be me," one of them stated as he stepped forward, holding the red sniper rifle by his waist. Alec's eyebrows shot up in surprise once he saw who it was.

"_Lieutenant Chellick_. I had a feeling that if it wasn't Pallin flying in here, you'd be the next person who could authorise this," Alec said as he used his free hand to indicate the interior of the Ray gunship.  
Chellick's head reared back in surprise as he looked over to Bailey who was standing behind Alec. The Human officer could only shrug, having no answer to explain Alec's foreknowledge of the Turian's name or rank.

"Well its been great meeting you all, but I'm on a time limit!" announced Alec as he spun around to the forward cockpit area, hefting the spear even higher.

Bailey turned toward the cockpit with a look of horror.  
"Thompson GET DOWN!" he shouted to the senior pilot a millisecond before Alec hurled the spear with all the strength he possessed. The spear shot forward, skinning past the pilot's shoulder as it stabbed into the main control console, causing an explosion of sparks to shoot outward. As Thompson fell out of his seat, clamping a hand down onto his bleeding arm, the lights throughout the ship began to flicker. The circle of agents frantically began looking around themselves as a deep groan reverberated throughout the frame of the Ray as it began to lose power.

Suddenly the whole front of the ship dipped downward! The agents and Alec all staggered awkwardly to keep their balance as the floor began to go on a slant, making it harder for them to stand up straight!

On the outside, large jets of black smoke began to pour out of the ship's four repulsors, the strong blue flames that had once burned within them were now snuffing on an off sporadically, causing the propulsion of the vessel to decrease as it began to slowly dive through the scattering travel lanes!

* * *

"What the hell is he _doing_ in there?" I voiced to Yoda as we both leaned out over the dash-board, our eyes glued to the ship as she fell farther and farther away from us! Quickly pulling the joystick to the side, I brought the car overtop of the falling ship, bringing us closer to the platforms of the Presidium Ring as I dropped us down onto the gunship's right side.  
As I pulled us closer, keeping us level with the vessel as it continued to dive down, my gaze began searching across the hull, trying to find any signs of a second airlock that Alec could use to jump back across from.  
"Samuel, can you open the driver's side door?" I asked the dash-board once I'd found what I was sure to be the closed doors of a right-side airlock.

_"That would be highly in-advisable Mr. Irwin, the chances of..."_ began Samuel, but I didn't have time for that.  
"Just do it!"

As I continued to look over at the ship, the entire left side door of the car retracted from its cradle and slid backwards, causing me and Yoda to brace against our seatbelts as the sudden rush of raging wind ripped at us, trying to pull us from our seats.  
_"Axel, we're entering the Military Docks!"_ Haxon shouted into my ear. As I looked ahead, my eyes widened as I rammed the stick forward, diving the car down to avoid slamming into the side-hull of a docked Turian War-ship!  
Looking off to our right, I pulled us down lower to keep up with the falling Ray, seeing many more enormous fighting ships flash past us, each docked against large piers that jutted out from the outer districts of the Ring.

We'd made it to our destination, but we still had a man out in the field! We had barely even started this great quest we were suppost to journey through, and I would not be leaving him behind so quickly.  
"Come on Alec, get out of there!"

* * *

"We're losing altitude! Activate the emergency boosters!" Thompson shouted to the four other pilots as he pulled himself back into his chair, ignoring the pain in his arm as his fingers flew across what was left of his console.  
As he and the other pilots began to quickly activate the reserve systems, the gunship started to lurch upward as several hidden boosters on the ship's underside began to fire, bringing the craft back up toward the travel lane.

As the ship began to right itself, the floor became level, allowing Alec and the rest of the agents back in the main area to stand normally again. Once this had happened, all of the law enforcement turned their heads back over to Alec, who was still standing amidst them in an awkward posture.

"That didn't work out as well as I'd hoped," Alec said with a wince at the sudden failure of his plan, an even more awkward expression on his face as he looked around at the recovering agents.  
"GET HIM!" shouted Chellick as he threw down his sniper rifle and charged forward, the other Turians following his example in a heart-beat.

"Alright! PLAN B!" Alec shouted as he snapped into a ancient fighting stance.

With a full spinning sweep of his leg, the Guardian connected the heel of his boot with three of the Turians' faces, sending them spinning to the ground. Chellick came in with a haymaker, sending it crashing into Alec's cheek. He doubled backwards from the blow but immediately retaliated by blocking the lieutenant's next punch and sending a straight kick into the center of his armoured abdomen, knocking Chellick several feet back across the floor.

The other three Turians rushed in afterward, unleashing a vicious barrage of punches and kicks, to which Alec blocked and counter attacked, sending each agent careering to the floor.

As one of the previous Turians threw a jab at Alec, he dodged to the side, grabbing the man's outstretched wrist in the process and throwing a powerful strike into the Turian's temple with the ball of his open palm, knocking him out cold. Taking hold of the back of the agent's armoured oval neckline, Alec threw the sleeping body into the path of the on-coming lieutenant Bailey!

Bailey dodged to the side as the body went past him before lashing out with a swinging right punch. Alec dodged again, grabbing onto Bailey's un-casted wrist with one arm, and this time sending a close-fisted punch into the Human's chest.  
With his arm still in Alec's grasp, the Guardian swung the gasping future Captain to the side like a sling, smashing him into another Turian agent which sent both men tumbling to the ground in a heap.

As all this was happening, Thompson was busy trying to yank the Predator spear out from his destroyed console. After Alec felled another Turian, the senior pilot wrenched the weapon free, getting up out of his seat and holding the spear next to his head in a throw ready position. "Is this the _best_ C-Sec has to offer?" Alec goaded with a grin as he slammed both his open palms into the sides of another agent's head, painfully discombobulating the Turian before knocking him out with a strike to his forehead.

Drawing his arm back with all his strength, Thompson threw the spear directly at Alec's backside, intending to at least distract him so that the agents would have a better chance of defeating him

But to the pilot's horror, Alec spun around in an instant, catching the spear around the mid-shaft and twirling it in a graceful circle before slamming the flat side of one of its diamond headed points into another Turian's face, clotheslining the agent to the ground!

"Thank you sir!" Alec gratefully called over to to the pilot, who simply stood there, mortified that he had un-intentionally aided the terrorist they were trying to arrest!

Once again armed with a spear, Alec was able to easily knock down the remaining four Turians with his almost acrobatic like moves, spinning his body and twirling the weapon in circles, only using the blunt portion of the spear's shaft to keep from seriously injuring anyone as he struck down on their heads or swept their legs out from under them.

After a few seconds, it had now come down to just Alec and Chellick while the others lay on the floor in pain. As the two faced off against one another, Chellick reached behind his back and pulled out a serrated blade.  
"Ah, a knife to a spear, I'll take those odds!" said Alec as he made a strike with one end of his weapon, aiming for the side of Chellick's head. But the Turian managed to duck, swiping his own weapon towards Alec's stomach as the spear passed over him. The Guardian however, being an accomplished master of spear fighting, was able to twirl the spear and send its opposite end smacking into the bottom of the knife's hilt.

Chellick's weapon was sent flying from his grasp into the air, allowing Alec to grab that same end of the Combi-Stick and smash the silver shaft straight into the Turian's face! The crunch of breaking bone sounded out as the spear made contact, causing Chellick to yell out in pain as he staggered back. But the lieutenant wasn't out of the fight yet, for as the first streams of blue blood began to trickle out of his nostrels he grabbed onto the end of the Combi-Stick and wrenched it aside, swiping a vicious brawler's punch across Alec's jaw!

Alec jerked to the side as Chellick struck him, growling angrily before he tightened his grip on the bottom end of the spear and drove the shaft straight into Chellick's groin.  
"OHHG!" the lieutenant groaned loudly, wheezing in pain as he fell to one knee.

"Sorry about this," Alec apologized as he landed a punch straight between Chellick's eyes, sending the Turian folding onto his back, howling in pain as he held onto his bleeding nose. Satisfied that he had neutralized the most dangerous members of the gunship's crew, Alec flicked the button on the spear which caused its two ends to retract into the main body.

But suddenly, as he was about to make his way over to the open airlock on the other side of the ship, a Human arm snaked its way around his neck, tightening to the point where it was choking him!

"How sorry are you now son?" Bailey whispered venomously in Alec's ear as the lieutenant hung off of his back, his casted left hand clamping down around Alec's left wrist, throwing it from side to side in an attempt to make him drop the Combi-Stick.  
In answer to this, Alec threw his body backwards, slamming Bailey's back hard against the wall behind them. The Human grunted in pain but kept his arm locked around Alec's wind pipe, his other arm extending out and slamming the Guardian's hand repeatedly against the wall. As it hit the wall again, the bottom point of the compact spear accidentally stabbed into a glowing orange key-pad!

Both Alec and Bailey shouted out in pain as the electricity from the now damaged mechanism travelled through the metal spear and into Bailey's metal arm-cast, electro-shocking both of them for a brief moment before Alec let go of the spear, causing it to fall from the key-pad in a hail of sparks. Suddenly a second concealed airlock opened up right beside the two of them, letting a huge gust of air and a brilliant ray of white-sunshine flood into the gunship, causing the struggling pair to stagger from its force.

"Bailey! We are _not_ your enemies! We're trying to get off the station in order to _save_ everyone!" Alec shouted back to Bailey over the raging wind, baring his teeth as he tried to pry the lieutenant's arm away from his neck. Bailey only grunted again as Alec pinned him against the wall, his casted hand having wrapped around his own wrist, pulling his un-broken arm tighter and tighter around Alec's throat!

"You can tell that to the jury! After we've thrown you and your friends into the deepest darkest pit we can find!"

Suddenly, Alec's eyes began to glow a bright silver. His stuggling became more violent as large white fangs extending out from his canine teeth. Opening his mouth wide, he let out a savage roar like that of a jungle cat before snapping his head backward, slamming it straight into Bailey's face. Bailey gasped as Alec's head made contact with his nose, causing him to losen his grip slightly.  
The Guardian slammed his head back again, hitting Bailey in the cheek bone this time, causing his grip to loosen even more. Immediately, Alec threw one of his elbows backwards, striking Bailey in the side of his ribcage.

The lieutenant groaned as he doubled over from the pain of the blow, allowing Alec to reach back and wrap an arm around the back of Bailey's neck, harshly flipping him over his shoulder and slamming him down back-first onto the floor!

As Bailey lay wheezing in front of him, Alec pressed his hand down on his chest and delivered a disabling punch straight into the Human's already bruised temple. Bailey yelled in pain as he clamped a hand onto his re-injured head. As he did so, Alec knelt down on one knee and grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt, pulling him up closer so that they could look at each other upside down face to upside down face.

"I could have killed you just now, but I didn't. Because contrary to what you believe, me and Axel are the good guys, and we are trying to help the people of this galaxy. This whole terrorist thing is a ruse of mine that went terribly wrong and we are trying to make up for it, remember that the next time we meet," Alec stated grimly with a scowl as he shoved Bailey back down to the floor, leaving the stunned officer in silence as he stood up and turned to retrieve the Combi-Stick.

As he picked up the compact spear and slid it under his belt behind his back, the loud screech of a hover car rang out from nearby the open airlock that he stood in front of. Grabbing onto both sides of the lock's frame, the Guardian stuck his head out into the cool rushing air, the force of it causing his eyes to squint as he looked all around the fleeing cars that continued to speed away from the travel lane, searching for the source of the constant screech.

"Come on!" came a familiar shout as Irwin's car suddenly rose up into view from below, coming to a hover level with the gunship just a few feet away from the edge of her right wing. The car's left side door was slid open to reveal Axel and Yoda still seated behind the dash-board, both of them frantically beckoning to him while Jango was still slumped to one side in the back seat. A wide smile spread to Alec's face as he gave the Ring Bearer and Jedi Master a quick thumbs up.  
"Dudes! Most excellent timing!" he shouted over to them, imitating the line that Mickey had given his brothers in TMNT 3.

That was when a single pistol shot ricocheted off of the airlock's frame next to Alec's head. Spinning around, he held onto the frame with one hand while placing his other on the butt of one of Jango's blasters.

"You're not going anywhere," Chellick spat as he leveled his Striker pistol on Alec's chest. The Turian was in a semi-sitting position, holding his pistol with both hands. The entire half of his face from his broken nose down was covered in smeared blue blood.  
_'If I had a nickle for every time thats been said to me today.'_

"I'm going to assume that Bailey has already told you what happened back in the park. So you should know full well that that little pee-shooter isn't going to do anything to me," Alec said casually to Chellick as he turned back to the frame, readying himself to jump. Suddenly another shot rang out, followed by another and another!  
Alec yelled out painfully as the lethal thermal rounds impacted into his shoulder and then his chest, each one tearing a loonie sized hole through his body. Chellick continued firing until the alarm on his pistol began to beep, signalling that he had overheated.

Alec slumped backwards, leaning against the airlock frame, looking back at Chellick with a smirk on his face. The Turian lowered his gun, his eyes wide at what he was seeing.  
The wounds on Alec's body began to glow silver, each one slowly shrinking and then disappearing, healing themselves while also repairing the damage done to his samurai armour and SS uniform.

"What _are_ you?" Chellick asked finally.

"I'm _complicated_," Alec answered simply, before snapping his head back over to the airlock as Axel and Yoda called out to him from the hover car.  
"Well gentleman, Toodles, we should do it again some time!" Alec laughed as he gave a quick wave to the injured agents before grabbing onto both sides of the frame again and launching himself out into the rushing air!

The Guardian shouted as he outstretched his arms before him, extending the talons on both hands, reaching for the side of the car as he flew across the bottomless gap between them. This jump had been less successful than his last one, causing Alec to nearly miss the car by an inch as his claws stabbed into the edge of vehicle's exposed flooring.

* * *

"Pull him in!" I ordered over to Yoda as Alec's body flailed against the pressing wind, his claws beginning to carve scratch marks into the carpet as the suction from the speed of the vehicle began to tug at him. Yoda quickly un-buckled himself from this seat, jumping into the back area to land in front of the struggling Guardian.  
"Axel pull up!" Alec shouted over the wind as he swung his legs and body up against the bottom of the car, narrowly avoiding the guard-rail of a walkway platform as we skimmed over top. We were now entering into the more condenced area of the Military Docks, which meant we were now pulling out of the travel lane and having to dodge around platforms, war-ships, and moving machinery rather than fleeing cars.

Yoda stretched out both his hands toward Alec, clenching his fingers as he surrounded his body in a Force grip.  
"Hey, HEY! Gently, gently, _GENTLY_!" shouted Alec as he was briefly lifted into the air and thrown roughly back into the car, landing upside down on the rear seat next to the sleeping Jango.  
"Awesome team-work people! Samuel, close the door," I called back to the duo before speaking to the dash-board. Immediately the door began to retract back into its cradle, smoothly sealing back into place with a hiss.

But as it was closing, I cast a glance back toward the gunship. Right away I found myself locking eyes with Bailey. The lieutenant was bracing himself against the frame of the open airlock, his casted left hand holding onto his bruised temple. Despite being in stinging pain, Bailey was able to narrow his eyes and direct a venomous glare up at me, imparting a silent message that this wasn't the last we had seen of him.

Giving him a short nod of respect, the door closed in between us as I pulled on the joystick, slowly pulling us away from the ship.

* * *

"We're coming up on the designated platform sir! If we want to bring them down you gotta do it now!" Thompson shouted from the cockpit. Spinning around, Bailey shot out a hand towards Chellick.  
"Chellick, your sniper!" he said. The Turian instantly snapped his hand over to where he had thrown down his weapon, grabbing onto it and tossing it over into Bailey's outstretched grasp. Catching the rifle, Bailey disengaged the concussive ammunition, instead activating the weapon's High Explosive rounds.  
"Just _one_ shot..." Bailey muttered under his breath as he pulled the rifle-scope up to his eye, taking careful aim at the back thrusters of Axel's car before he could pull out of sight.

With a quick squeeze of the trigger, half of the stolen car's back end exploded in a fireball of smoke and speeding metal shards!

"Bailey, get out of there!" shouted Chellick as the ship suddenly began to rock violently, the Human lieutenant ducking away from the airlock as a huge swarm of fire and debris began to shoot past it. The ship sharply pulled away from Axel's damaged car, its right wing having smashed into a line of electrical power converters that sent it jerking off course.

"What's the status of the agents at the platform?" Chellick asked gruffly as he came up and held onto the back of Thompson's chair, his other hand holding onto his broken nose, which had begun to seep blood over his fingers.  
"They're set up and ready. But the Ray is losing too much power, we can't continue this chase without getting repairs first," the senior pilot said over to the lieutenant, indicating the sparks coming out of the jagged hole in his console thanks to the Predator spear.  
"That's fine, set us down at the platform as well. Bailey and I are going to make this arrest personally," Chellick stated with a small hint of eagerness.

A second of silence went by before Chellick sniffed, cringing in pain as his broken nostrels flared up again.  
"None of you guys would have a tissue on you, _would you_?" he asked as he looked around at the other four pilots.

* * *

"Driver, we seem to be having a problem with the back of the vehicle!" Alec called up to me as the car rocked violently out of control, the entire rear end spewing out jets of fire and a trail of thick black smoke!  
"I can _see_ that!" I shouted back to him, straining my muscles furiously as I fought against the thrashing joystick, the entire frame of the vehicle groaning in protest as it shook from the force of our rapid descent.  
"Thought I did, that this Bailey wanted to take us alive, why now would he choose to simply shoot us out of the sky?" Yoda asked over to me as he hopped back into the front passenger's seat.

"Because he still _does_ want to take us alive, look!" I said as I pointed up ahead. As we continued to dodge around or under on-coming platforms, there was one in particular that lay directly ahead of us. Spread out along it were the six C-Sec hover-patrol cars that had been chasing us earlier. As many as twenty-four armoured agents scattered across the platform once they saw us coming, each of them taking cover behind their cars as they trained assault rifles on us.

_"Alert: Vehicle damage exceeding maximum safe levels, power drainage detected throughout all propulsion systems,"_ announced Samuel as the few remaining thrusters at the back of the car began to sputter and fail, all of them shutting down with a slowly fading whine.  
"Come on, come on. There's gotta be a back up system, or an emergency override! Haxon give me something!" I said as I began pushing buttons, thinking through everything the Mind Mending had given me to find a way to avoid smashing down onto that platform.  
_"My scans show that if the remaining thrusters were given a large surge of power, their out-put would be enough to keep us airbourne for a short a while, at-least enough to avoid the C-Sec platform."_

"You said the ring allows me to impart knowledge to other things, can it also impart energy?" I quickly said back to Alec as he came to sit in the chair behind Yoda's.  
"I don't know, none of the other Bearers ever tried something like that!" he answered frantically, the C-Sec platform coming closer and closer with each passing second as the car began to slow down.

"There's no time like the present," I said to myself as I pressed my right palm against the dash-board, willing a spark of energy to pass from me into the car. I could feel the ring begin to light up, the back thrusters sputtering as they struggled to turn back on, almost like the engine of a damaged car trying to turn over.  
_"Landing in five seconds!"_ Haxon shouted in my ear, Alec and Yoda turning to me with an anxious look as the car began to glide over the platform, slowly slanting down towards its surface.

"Concussive rounds only boys, this is the end of the line for them!" I heard a Salarian officer say as he and two Turian agents stepped out from behind the patrol car that was parked along-side the platform's guard railing, coming over until they were standing just in front of were we would surely crash and skid to a halt if I didn't get the thrusters to work again!

"Come on, start DAMMIT!" I shouted as I put more strength into my will, channeling my intention directly into the ring's power. Suddenly a web of silver electrical sparks zapped out of my hand, dancing across the dash-board for a brief moment before disappearing into its fine circuitry.

Suddenly the remaining thrusters roared alive with more power than all of them had been capable of combined!

All of us were thrown back in our seats as the car shot forward, sending us straight toward the Salarian and the Turians! The officer and his men shouted out as they dived in either direction, narrowly dodging the car as we blasted over them.  
"Oh shit!" I said as I tried pulling back on the joystick, noticing that we were speeding straight toward the parked patrol car in front of us. The maneuvering of the stick sent the car shooting upward from the platform in a slanted U similar to how I had done back in the parking-lot, only this time we didn't pull up fast enough.

All of us bucked forward as the front of the car smashed into the side roof of the patrol car, our supernaturally fueled speed causing us to bash it farther out in front of us, crashing both it and our car into the guard-railing and sending us diving over the side of the platform! The front hood and engine of Irwin's car crumbled almost like tin-foil after the impact, sending sparks and huge balls of flame blasting out in front of us, making the front of our car look like a burning asteroid as we plummeted from the platform down toward a large series of connecting complexes and docking piers not far below!

As we all held onto our seats, bracing ourselves as the flaming car shook all around us, the multi-coloured lights across the dash-board suddenly vanished from sight.  
_"System..errooorrrrrr..."_ Samuel uttered as his voice became incredibly low and garbled before cutting off completely.  
"What?_ Samuel_!" I shouted as I tried pulling back on the joystick, trying to get this flaming contraption to at least crash land softly.  
"HEADS UP!" Alec shouted to Yoda and I as he pointed ahead. Snapping my head back up to the windshield, I peered through the billowing tendrils of flame that liked away at the glass, just managing to make out a narrow walk-way street, lined with apartments and housing complexes.

And we were diving straight into it!

All of us started shouting in panic as I began yanking the stick back with every ounce of strength I had, hoping that there might be one shred of control left in the vehicle. Instead, I only succeeded in ripping the stick out of its socket! (Cheap manufacturing if you ask me!)

As I held up the sparking joystick in one hand, all of us looked ahead at the rapidly approaching street that we were now only seconds away from smashing down into.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the three of us screamed as we tore out of our seats, scrambling over eachother as we clawed our way as far into the back of the car as possible!

* * *

James Forsenski huffed as he stepped out of his hover-car, locking the doors before he shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. He had been told by his superiors to take the day off, to go home and get some rest after his 'traumatic' ordeal today. Forsenski scoffed at the memory of their words, knowing full well that they really only thought of him as an embarrassment because of his in-ability to stop Axel and his cohorts when they had first landed in the Presidium Park.  
_'What was I suppose to do against them?'_ Forsenski thought as began to walk down the street toward his apartment complex, silently stewing over how easily he had been dismissed.

_'I was knocked out, by the time I came to they had already escaped,'_ he had said to his commanders, feeling quite sure they would over-look his failures in the face of the riot that had downed the 30 well armed Turian agents that had come to bring Axel in.

Only they hadn't, in fact they seemed to zero in on him even more because he had been the first on the scene. Their mentality was that if he had only acted more professionally, he could have apprehended Axel then and there, stopping him before he could cause anymore havoc.  
_'Well, we all know how successful _they've_ been at apprehending him,'_ Forsenski thought, taking some solace in the knowledge that even the most skilled C-Sec veterans were having trouble arresting this guy.  
"All I need is one chance, if I ever see those people again..." began Forsenski angrily with a small shake of his fist as he came up to the retractable door that led into his apartment complex.

Suddenly a tremendous crash of shattering glass and breaking metal echoed throughout the street off to the agent's left, causing him to duck instinctively with his arms wrapped over his head. After a few seconds Forsenski stood up, his eyes wide with a confused expression on his face as he took in the sudden change of scenery. Lying upside down on its roof, crushed in multiple places, each window shattered and with its lights flashing on and off, was an empty C-Sec patrol car!

"What the hell?" Forsenski asked to himself as he looked up toward the docking platforms that jutted out a hundred feet over his head. Only he didn't get to look for very long, for he immediately found himself diving to the ground as a flaming red hover car came crashing down a dozen feet away from him!

An explosion of flame, sparks, and super heated metal blasted out from the front end of the car as it slammed down into the street, skidding across the metal floor by a few inches before ramming into the side wall of the apartment complex.  
James found himself lying on his back, slowly crab-walking away from the flaming wreck before staggering to his feet, hyperventilating at having nearly been crushed a second ago.  
Small pieces of burning debris littered around where he stood, sending up small whisps of smoke to mix in with the raging black column that rose up from the car's destroyed engine.

After taking a few huge gulps of air to calm himself down, Forsenski turned away from the burning vehicle, raising his left arm as he activated his omni-tool. "Academy. C-Sec Academy come in, this is off-duty agent James Forsenski, calling from the apartment-complexes underneath the Military Docking zone," Forsenski said into the tool's radio speaker.

_"This is Academy, go ahead Forsenski,_" responded a female voice.

"I've just witnessed two vehicles crash into one of the area's walk-streets. One of them is an un-manned C-Sec patrol car, while the other appears to be a red civilian vehicle of an advanced make. I can't tell at this time if there are any occupants inside, but I will begin to..." Forsenski began to report to the woman, when suddenly a metallic thud rang out from the inside of the flaming car.

Frowning the agent spun around, his omni-tool still activated, as another thud came from the car, its left side door visibly shaking after each hit, as if someone on the inside were trying to bash it open. After another strike, there was a pause before the door was suddenly blasted off its hinges, flipping end over end as it smashed and skid several feet down the street past Forsenski.

_"Say again agent, are there any occupants inside that vehicle?"_ the female voice demanded as James stared wided eyed at the scene unfolding before him.

As swirls of black smoke snaked out of the car's interior, a blonde Human dressed in a dark red and black suit of armour staggered out through the vehicle's newly opened side. Falling to his knees, the man coughed un-controllibly as he fell forward, going on all fours as he tried to breath normally. After a few seconds of coughing, the man brought up a hand and began rubbing his neck as he took in deep lungfulls of fresh air. As this happened, he pushing himself back up to sit on his knees, looking straight ahead.

And that's when Forsenski locked eyes with him. The agent's jaw dropped slightly as he recognised _Axel_, the very man he had met only an hour ago.

Axel and the agent both froze in silence as they stared at each other, neither of them saying a word. Both of them just blinked at the other, one still with shock while the other was frowning slightly in confusion. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Axel's confusion turned to amusement as he chuckled at the situation. Placing a hand on his hip and briefly pointing a finger of indication toward Forsenski, the terrorist spoke.

"So...Satan walks into a bar."

There was a short second of silence before James' eyes rolled back into his head, his vision blacking out as he collapsed to the ground, fainting on the spot.

**Now, its finally, _FINALLY_ ready to be put out here. So much happened during the whole year it took me to make this, and I know many of you are probably tired of me saying it but I am deeply, DEEPLY! sorry for how long this took me write this. I graduated high school, I built a house, I took a trip to Europe, yadda yadda yadda. Basically everything life could throw at me was thrown at me this past year, preventing me from finding the necessary time to finally get this to you guys. So I hope you all can forgive me...again...and I hope you enjoy this new chapter. Give me your feed-back and what-not and I will take it into consideration. I have the next chapter all planned out, and trust me it will be A LOT shorter than this one, which means it will be out far sooner (I hope).**


	7. I am Iron Man? Part 1

**And I'm back; with the biggest and best chapter we have to date! Hope you guys all had a great time over the holidays and have been reading plenty of stories in the time I've been gone. In this chapter we finally, one hundred percent positively, get into the Mass Effect storyline! With new eye widening plot-twists, main characters, and a deeper look into Axel's past, this chapter is going to blow your mind and make you crave for more after you've finished picking up the pieces…(if that's not a grossly weird analogy for you guys) **

All of us yelled out as Irwin's car slammed down into the street, throwing us around the vehicle's interior as it came to a jarring stop. Thick black smoke blasted against us, filling up the interior as the dashboard exploded. The entire front and rear ends of the car were engulfed in roaring fire, illuminating most of the back area with an orange light, while also making the inside of the car feel like an oven.

Around me I could see Yoda slowly picking himself up from behind the dented center table, while further off to the side I saw Alec struggling to lift Jango's dead weight off of his back.

As our air supply quickly began to vanish we all started to choke and cough, holding onto our throats as we sucked in the poisonous vapors.

Having landed on my back next to the left side door, I sucked in as much clean oxygen as I could (which didn't turn out to be much) and began kicking at it with all my strength. As the heels of my knee-high combat boots struck into the door, a metallic thud rang out, with the entire left side of the car shaking from the impact.

But it wasn't enough to break the door free, and I was now beginning to feel the demand for more air pressing in on my lungs, my rapidly beating heart consuming my oxygen faster than it normally would.

Soon I would need to take another breath, even when there was no more air to breath in!

Drawing both knees up to my chest, I sent a final powerful kick into the door, shaking the entire car for a brief moment. But still NOTHING!

Gasping from the exertion, I began to cough uncontrollably as my lungs automatically started sucking in smoke. My throat burned and my chest began to ache, I was truly suffocating!

But suddenly, as my vision began to darken, I felt a three-fingered hand on my shoulder. Painfully turning my head, I could make out Yoda standing above me, a Jedi under-water breathing device placed in his mouth.

With a quick nod down to me, Yoda drew back one of his hands and threw a powerful blast of Force energy into the door. It groaned for a brief second as its mechanisms snapped apart, the entire car shaking from the impact before it was blown off its cradles, flipping end over end as it smashed down the street.

Immediately I tore out of the car, staggering several feet across the debris strewn ground before dropping to my knees. Falling forward onto my hands, I continued to cough sporadically for several moments, rubbing my sore neck as I began to suck in lungful's of cool fresh air.

Feeling relieved as the pain in my throat and chest began to recede, I pushed myself up from the metal street, sitting on my knees as I started to breath more normally.

That was when I finally noticed him.

Agent Forsenski stood about a dozen feet in front of me, wide eyed with his jaw dropped. I could faintly see that he had activated his glowing orange omni-tool, which at the moment had a female voice demanding information from him through it's speakers.

Both of us remained frozen in place, him standing still with shock and disbelief, while I only frowned slightly in confusion.

_'How did we run into _him_ again?'_ I thought as we continued to stare at one another. Forsenski blinked, to which I answered with a blink of my own, both of us still too stunned by the other to move. Finally, after what seemed like years and several hundred blinks later, I let out a brief chuckle at the thought of all this. Placing a hand on my hip and pointing a finger of indication toward the agent with my other, I said the first thing that came to mind.

"So... Satan walks into a bar."

There was another period of stunned silence, but this one was over quickly. Soon after I said that, Forsenski's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the floor on his back.

_'Thank you Hannibal Smith?'_ I cocked my head slightly; surprised by how similar the effect of that line had been compared to when Liam Neeson had given it in _The A-Team_. Before I could say anything, a heavy clunking sound, mixed with grunts and scoffing came from behind me. Standing up from my knees, I spun around to see Alec slumped halfway out of the smoking car, pushing the limp body of Jango Fett out in front of him.

"Now _that_ was a ride!" he called over to me as he rolled lazily out of the car after Jango, Yoda soon following him as he clipped his oxygen breather to his belt.

"Shhhh!" I breathed over to him, making a cutting gesture across my neck to warn him to be quite, since his voice had echoed throughout the street towards the C-Sec controlled platform up above us.

As Alec grabbed onto the edge of Irwin's wrecked car and pulled himself up to his feet, he cast a glance over towards Forsenski's sleeping body.

"Uhh...okay. What did I miss?" he asked as he looked over to me. I shrugged, my confused look returning.

"I got out, we had a staring contest, I told him a joke, and he fainted," I stated flatly with hand gestures indicating each part of the event. Suddenly the screech of hover-car engines echoed faintly throughout the street.

Lifting our gazes up to the platform overhead, we could make out five dark shapes flying through the air, each one slowly dropping down into the area towards us, blue and red flashes of light coming off of their rooves and reflecting off the darkened silver walls of the apartment complexes around us.

"Well, now that C-Sec's back on our tails, maybe you should try telling that joke to them," commented Alec with a cock of his eyebrow.

"There's gotta be a way to get back up to the Docks, lets move," I ordered over to the others as I watched the patrol cars continue to descend closer. Alec quickly grabbed onto Jango's right arm and swung him over his shoulder, grunted slightly as he became re-accustomed to the Mandalorian's dead weight. While I extended my arm out to Yoda so that he could climb up onto my back, Haxon suddenly piped in.

_"Citadel Security has a large presence within the Military Docks, and C-Sec Academy is only a few miles away from our current position. Would it not be more advantageous for us to find a way to monitor their radio transmissions in order to better avoid pursuing patrols?" _

I froze at that, looking between Yoda and Alec as Haxon's words began to sink in.

"You gotta be kidding me. Are you telling us that if we go back up there, we'll practically be standing at the mouth of the lion's den?!" Alec asked the A.I. as he turned to me, pointing up toward the platforms and piers that made up the Docks. I closed my eyes and smacked the ball of my palm against my forehead, now only realizing the even greater dangers of coming here.

"I should have known better. Whenever the _Normandy_ docked at the Citadel in the game, Shepard only had to take a single elevator to arrive at the Academy itself."

The whines' of the patrol cars were getting closer with each second, the first of the five hovering vehicles already beginning to drop down to street level.

"Take them and begin running down to the far end of the street, look for anything that can get us back up to the docks!" I ordered to Alec, briefly pointing behind him before I turned and began running in the opposite direction, directly toward the approaching C-Sec cars!

"Where're _you_ going!?" Alec shouted after me.

"We need Forsenski's omni-tool!" I called back over my shoulder as I dashed across the distance toward the unconscious man. Throwing myself down onto the floor, I slid the last few feet on the side of my leg like a star baseball player, coming to a screeching stop next to Forsenski's body. Coming up onto my knees, I grabbed his left arm (which was still broadcasting its orange hologram mind you) and pulled back the sleeve of his brown leather jacket, revealing the electronic strap for his omni-tool wrapped around the middle of his forearm.

_"Agent, report! What is going on over there!"_ the female voice coming out of the speakers nearly shouted. Taking hold of the strap, I ripped the device from Forsenski's arm, causing it to de-activate and make the hologram vanish.

"Don't worry, that one's gonna call you back," I said to the sleeping agent with a clap on the shoulder, slipping the tool into one of the pouches on my belt. As I stood up, a burning white light that shone down from one of the descending patrol cars suddenly blinded me. Raising a hand to shield my eyes, I heard the voice of the Salarian officer we had nearly run over back on the platform bark through a loudspeaker.

_"Halt! Stay right where you are!"_ the officer shouted, his car coming to a bobbing hover about a dozen feet off the ground in front of me.

"Sorry to tell you this but I got things to do...places to be...a galaxy to help save!" I called up to the car, shouting to be heard over the whine of the engines before I turned and began dashing back towards the far end of the street.

Running past the flaming debris and remains of Irwin's car, I could just make out the outline of Alec's body as he ran far ahead of me, holding Jango over one shoulder while Yoda hung off of his other. As I began to close the distance between us, I could see him zigzagging from one side of the street to the other, tapping the glowing red pads next to each of the doors he came up to.

Unfortunately all of them were locked.

"There has to be something..." I said to myself as I continued running, the blinding spotlight from the officer's car following me the entire time as he sped through the air in pursuit.

* * *

"There he goes! Keep on him as tight as you can," Bailey said to the Salarian officer as he leaned in from the back of their patrol car. Chellick sat in the front passenger seat next to the Salarian, holding his broken nose with a bloody tissue paper in one hand, while in the other he held his compact Striker sniper rifle on his lap.

After Thompson had set down the damaged Ray gunship on the platform, the two had immediately disembarked and joined up with the Salarian officer and his agents so that they could continue the chase.

"Its going to be a tight squeeze in here gentlemen, I may have to take her up a bit higher," the Salarian said before he manipulated the car's controls, raising the vehicle until it was skirting over the rooves of the apartments and housing buildings on either side of it, all the while keeping his white searchlight fixed on Axel as the terrorist continued to run down the street. Flanking the officer's car on both sides were the other four patrol cars he had brought with him, each one filled to the brim with fully armed and armoured Turian agents.

* * *

"Find anything?!" I called to Alec before I caught up with him and the others. We were now running side by side, heading straight down the center of the street looking at the passing walls for any signs of a staircase or elevator that could take us back up to the docking platforms.

Suddenly a sharp left turn formed in the street up ahead. As we dashed around it at full speed, momentarily evading the Salarian's searchlight, we came to a skidding halt once we saw what was in front of us.

Rising up from the floor was a wide staircase made up of about a dozen metal steps. The stairs continued up to a small-enclosed platform covered by a ceiling, the center of which held a plexi-glass elevator shaft!

As our eyes traveled farther up, we could see that the rest of the shaft that ascended above the ceilinged enclosure toward the Docks was made out of a dark grey metal, with no windows or glass of any kind along its entire structure.

"Yeah...I found another elevator…" Alec answered with a deep groan of dread as he indicated the lift. Both Yoda and I rolled our eyes as we began climbing up the staircase, leaping up the steps two at a time to get to the top faster. The white glare from the Salarian's searchlight flashed onto our backsides once again as the officer slowly brought his car around the corner, coming to a dead hover facing the elevator platform.

_"Do not attempt to use that elevator or we will open fire!"_ the officer shouted over his loudspeaker, the other four patrol cars loaded with C-Sec agents coming to a hover at his back. By now Alec and I had reached the top of the staircase, the Guardian throwing himself in-behind a small section of wall that jutted out from the main wall off to our left, while I dashed across the last ten feet of the platform towards the elevator shaft.

"Guess what? We're using it!" I shouted back to them as I pressed my palm into the glowing red pad set up next to the shaft, causing it to change green. I felt relieved as I waited for the door to rise up, which would bring us one step closer to escaping. But as the seconds dragged by, I frowned after noticing something very disconcerting.

Nothing was happening!

"Oh come on, what now?!" I uttered in frustration as I smacked the pad again, this time having no effect, its colour remaining a bright green. Scowling, I punched the pad several more times, each strike getting progressively harder and harder as my frustration grew.

"Axel..." Alec called over to me, pointing up toward the elevator shaft. Looking up and craning my neck to see through the glass door, I could faintly see the bottom of the elevator cabin slowly descending down toward us.

"Oh great, since this is a Mass Effect elevator we're going to be standing here for a few hours before we can even get on," I said over to Alec and Yoda as I threw my arms out in defeat. Suddenly a familiar sniper shot boomed out near us, followed by a concussion round impacting against the glass door next to my shoulder!

I yelled out in surprise as I threw myself down to the floor, quickly crawling forward on my stomach until I managed to successfully pull myself behind another section of wall that jutted out from the main wall opposite to Alec.

"I guess he wasn't kidding about that last threat," Alec said over to me as Yoda jumped off his shoulder and activated his lightsaber, while the Guardian leaned Jango's body into a sitting position against the jutting wall before pulling out one of the bounty hunter's pistols.

"Neither was I, we're getting out of here one way or another," I said as I stood up with my back leaning against my section of wall. Reaching back to my right shoulder I drew my compact Super-rifle from its clippings, activating it into the triple barrel Master Shotgun that I had used against the Xenomorphs back in Irwin's store.

"I was meaning to ask about that neat toy..." Alec said once he noticed the unique looking weapon.

"Something I pieced together while I was on my little shopping trip," I answered as I began to use the ring to Mind Mend with the gun. After the knowledge of all three of the weapons combined into the single frame had finished downloading into my mind, I flicked one of the buttons built into the side.

"Something you _pieced _together?" Yoda asked over to me.

Suddenly the three barrels on the front of the weapon retracted back into the casing, the frame extending and re-arranging itself into an elongated version with a long single barrel running down its center!

"Cool!" Alec stated in amazement before flinching as another sniper round boomed out, ricocheting against the wall that he was standing behind. As the scope for my new Master Sniper rifle rose up out of the frame, I held the weapon straight up near my shoulder with both hands.

Back during my advanced-weapons training when I had applied to become an officer in the Army, I had been one of the best shots in my class with both pistols and assault rifles. I had taken a few courses in sniper training as a curiosity, but soon found that I lacked the same knack that my friend and fellow soldier Geordi Hiamoto had for it.

However, even if I wasn't as much of an expert at it as he was, I was still proficient enough with this kind of weapon to nail a target at 300 yards away, which was almost three times the distance that the Salarian's patrol car was to us now. Blowing out a deep breath after setting the rifle's concussive rounds to maximum, I quickly spun around the corner of the jutting wall into the blinding glare of the search-light, dropping to one knee as I brought the scope of the rifle up to my eye. The glare from the light burned into my retinas, keeping me from seeing anything else as the unknown sniper fired his third shot. I jerked slightly as the round impacted against my shields.

_"Shields down to 85%!"_ warned Haxon.

"Lights out..." I said under my breath, letting a smirk cross my lips as I squeezed the trigger. The sound of shattering glass accompanied the deep boom of my shot, causing the light to immediately wink out of existence and allowing me to see normally again.

Hovering almost level with the platform at about fifty feet away from us, the Salarian officer's car stared straight at me with its roof and doors wide open, allowing me to see the occupants who rode inside it.

Through my scope I could clearly see Bailey sitting in the back, the Salarian sitting at the steering controls, and leaning rigidly out of the passenger's seat was...

"CHELLICK?!" I blurted once I recognized the bloodied face of the Turian lieutenant, who at the moment was pointing an overheated red sniper rifle across the top of his dash-board, the small beeping alarm on its side quickly going silent the moment I locked eyes with him. Just before the lieutenant could pull the trigger on his weapon, I instinctively fired my second shot, catching him in his armoured shoulder plate.

Chellick shouted in pain as his body jerked hard to one side, his rifle sliding from his grasp as he fell sideways out of the car!

"Take us up!" Bailey shouted to the Salarian as he lunged forward, grabbing onto Chellick's trailing arm before he could slip from his seat. The Salarian officer manipulated the car's controls with one hand, making the open hover car rise higher and higher into the air away from the top of the stairs.

As he did so, he also used his other hand to whip out the pistol holstered against his hip and begin firing round after round directly down at me!

"When did Chellick get involved in this?" I asked the others as I threw myself back around the corner of the wall, narrowly dodging the pistol blasts that impacted into the floor off to my side.

"Yeeeeeeah, its a bit of a funny story. It turns out Chellick was the one who authorized the Ray instead of Pallin," Alec answered with a slightly awkward laugh. I shot a murderously glare over at the Guardian.

"So you choose to tell me this _now_? After I was forced to take a shot at him!" I shouted at Alec, the whine of the other hover cars nearly drowning out my voice as the Salarian's Turian agents began to maneuver their patrol vehicles toward the elevator platform.

"We did just crash your new friend's million dollar car only a few minutes ago, I didn't see any opportunity to let you in on that little detail while an army of beat-cops was shooting us out of the sky!"

Suddenly the whining from the cars' engines decreased in pitch, lessening down to a dull humming sound. Keeping our weapons at the ready, both Alec and I tentatively peeked our heads around the corners of our wall sections.

"Oh crud..." I said once I saw what awaited us in front of the platform. All four of the Turian driven hover cars floated in a horizontal line in front of us, each of them with their doors and rooves also wide open to reveal their said Turian occupants, all of whom were pointing fully charged assault rifles down at us!

"Fire!" one of them ordered, his voice immediately being accompanied by a hail of thermal blasts.

"I don't think they're using concussion rounds anymore!" Alec shouted over to me as we ducked back into cover, the barrage of thermal rounds carving into the sides of our walls, sending blasts of smoke and loose metal fragments shooting past us.

"Gentlemen, the elevator!" Yoda shouted over the gunfire as he pointed back over to the shaft. No sooner after he had said it, a loud elevator chime rang out with the glass door on the front of the shaft immediately sliding up from the floor, showing off the polished metal interior of the elevator cabin.

"Now _that's_ timing," I said to the others with a grin as I pointed to our means of escape. Grinning also, Alec offered his free arm down to the small Jedi Master.

"Okay! Lets give a round of applause for YODA! Master of the Jedi, you're up!" he announced as Yoda climbed onto Alec, the Jedi planting his frog like feet onto his forearm and into the palm of his open hand. With one quick motion Alec sharply drew back his arm and threw the Master toward the elevator underhand style!

Yoda flew through the air, crossing the ten-foot distance between Alec and the shaft in seconds. As he soared, he twisted his body in mid-air and whirled his lightsaber around himself, deflecting a fire-storm of rounds that came his way before he landed inside the cabin with a roll.

Standing up and ducking around the elevator's doorframe, Yoda extended a hand out toward Jango's unconscious body, wrapping the sleeping man in a strong Force grip.

"Screw the system!" shouted Alec as he sprang out from his cover; clicking the full-automatic button on his pistol and firing wildly back up at the Turians!

"What're you doing?!" I shouted to him while recoiling a bit farther away from the edge of my wall, a rain of thermal rounds impacting around and against the Guardian's body as the C-Sec agents returned fire.

"Giving him some cover!" Alec answered back to me through bared teeth as he indicated his head over to the elevator shaft, his body glowing silver as his bullet wounds began healing the moment each round tore into him.

Snapping my head back over to the elevator, I could see the body of Jango lazily floating across the platform, being pulled toward the cabin by Yoda's powers without getting hit thanks to the distraction Alec was causing.

Grinning slightly, I clicked another button on the side of my Super-rifle, causing the weapon to morph and retract into the form of its Master Assault rifle.

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea, HAAAAAARR!" I said over to Alec before shouting out and springing from my own cover, coming up beside him as we both unleashed the full fury of our weapons on the Turians, whooping at the top of our lungs like madmen!

As Alec drew out his other pistol and fired a destructive barrage upon the bodies of the agents' cars, I sighted each of them through the scope of my rifle, flicking from Turian to Turian as I fired bursts of concussive rounds from my barrel.

The explosive blasts from Jango's pistols rocked the hover cars, causing plums of smoke and flame to shoot out as each of Alec's shots hit the vehicles. The Turian's themselves were taken aback by this sudden offensive strategy, some even momentarily pausing in shock, which allowed me to send as many as six of them crumbling back into their seats as my rounds struck them down.

But it didn't last for long, the rest of the agents soon began ducking behind their dashboards to avoid getting hit, several of them even redirecting their fire at me!

I grunted as my shields flared around me in a pixeled cylinder, causing me to stagger slightly as the field dissipated each round that impacted against it.

_"Axel, your shields have dropped to 50%!"_ Haxon said over the gunfire and shouting coming from both sides of the firefight.

"Go! I'm right behind ya!" Alec yelled over to me as he took a defiant step forward, brandishing a pistol in each hand and firing randomly at all four of the cars, looking like a weird space version of John Wayne!

Still firing my Super-rifle in timed bursts at each of the cars, I began quickly backing up towards the elevator, dodging slightly from side to side to avoid getting hit by a stray shot so that I might conserve the energy in my shields.

After firing a round into the shoulder of another Turian agent, I spun around and leapt into the elevator cabin, throwing myself behind its doorframe as several more rounds whizzed past my back and impacted into the far wall of the cabin.

"How fairs does Alec?" Yoda asked over to me from the other side of the door, Jango's body slumped heavily against the wall beside him. Peeking my head around the doorframe as I holstered my rifle and got a glimpse of the continuing action, I chose to let Alec answer that question for himself.

"THATS RIGHT BLUE BELLIES! I got plenty more where that came from!" Alec shouted with a gruff American Southern accent before he fired another burst of blaster fire from his pistols, causing more flame and smoke to explode out as the blasts impacted into the front ends of the patrol cars. With each pull of the triggers, the Guardian was slowly stepping backwards toward the elevator, seemingly taking his time as if he were enjoying this little shoot-out.

Finally Alec backed up until he was standing directly in front of the door frame, staggering farther and farther back as the remaining Turians continued to shoot round after round into his chest.

"Come on! Is that the best you got? I'll take on the whole damn Citadel if I..." Alec shouted in a laboured voice after each hit, still firing off his pistols randomly, when suddenly he was cut off as I came up behind him and clamped a gloved hand over his mouth!

"Yeah yeah, fight's over, we're closed!" I quickly announced to everyone as I wrapped my other arm around his torso and threw him back into the cabin, slamming my fist into the glowing console next to the door as I dodged in after him.

However, even as the glass door descended down in front of us the Turians kept firing, their thermal rounds impacting into the glass and causing small spider-web fractures to spread out across its entire surface!

"Come on...up! Go UP you stupid thing!" I said angrily to the elevator as I began punching the glowing green console repeatedly, while several thermal rounds actually started breaking through the glass door, causing it to shatter in several places under their combined barrage.

Finally the cabin started to rise from the floor, slowly moving out of the Turian's line of sight, causing their firing to pause briefly as they tried bringing their damaged patrol cars closer to the shaft.

"Throw me the launcher!" I heard one of them shout to the hover car beside him, his order quickly being answered as one of the other Turians reached for something laid out across the back seat of his vehicle.

My eyes widened when I saw the agent retrieve and throw a very large, fully loaded ML-77 missile-launcher to the first Turian across from him!

"Whatta you see?" Alec asked up to me from where he had landed on the cabin floor, being un-able to look through the bullet fractured glass door at the moment.

"We're screwed," I answered matter-of-factly as the Turian propped his elbows on the top of his car's dashboard, pulling the firing scope of the launcher up to his right eye. Just as the floor of the elevator cabin rose up overtop of the shaft's glass door, I could see the agent clamp his talon down on the weapon's trigger through the plexi-glass portion of the shaft a second before we began rising into the ceiling.

"Fire in the hole!" the Turian shouted to the other agents as a large cloud of white smoke exploded out from the end of the launcher's enormous barrel, sending the missile that had been fixed to it's front blasting straight up toward us!

"SHIT!" I shouted as I smashed my knuckles into the glowing control pad, hoping with every fiber of my being that it might make the elevator go up faster. Instead I only ended up shattering the controls from my adrenaline-fueled force while the blue-flamed missile rapidly closed the distance between us.

"Use the ring to create a force-field!" Alec shouted to me.

"What?" I shot over to him with a frown.

"DO IT!"

Acting on instinct with only half a second to spare, I shouted angrily as I threw both my open palms out in front of me, drawing upon every ounce of power I could take from the ring.

Suddenly a bright circle of rippling silver energy materialized and rapidly expanded out in front of the glass shaft, forming a protective barrier around us just as the missile made contact!

A massive explosion of fire and smoke splashed out against the field, ripping apart sections of the ceiling and shattering the rest of the shaft down below us as the cabin continued rising up, disappearing into the darkness of the enclosed metal shaft that extended up toward the Docks above the ceilinged enclosure.

Although my supernatural shield had been able to stop the missile's explosion itself, it wasn't able to stop the force of it. I yelled out in pain as I was thrown backwards into the far wall behind me, the entire cabin shuddering violently as the blast's shockwave slammed into it.

Sparks rained down from above as a jarring metallic groan ran throughout the elevator, smoke and additional sparks exploding out from most of the electronic appliances attached to the walls or the ceiling.

"Yoda! You alright?" Alec called out to the little green Jedi as the two crawled over to each other, both having been tossed around the cabin like rag-dolls after the missile had hit. The few remaining lights within the cabin activated once the near pitch-black darkness of the metal shaft had settled in on them, illuminating the area with a flickering blue glow.

Wisps of gray smoke lingered around their bodies, making it hard for the two to see each other. Luckily the cabin's ventilation systems were still working and had immediately begun to cycle fresh air into the enclosed space, slowly dissipating the harmful fumes.

"What became of Axel?" Yoda asked quickly as he grabbed onto Alec's forearm. Suddenly an intense screaming could be heard coming from the back of the elevator, one that sounded like the scream of an enraged person who was writhing in agony.

Both the Jedi and the Guardian snapped their heads over in the direction of the noise, squinting through the smoke to see _me_ spread across the floor on all fours, my left hand clamped around my right wrist, my teeth bared with my face and eyes scrunched up in a look of pained anger!

On my right ring finger, the material that made up my glove was smoking, several small sections of it had actually burned away near where the band of the ring itself was, almost exactly the way it had done to my SS glove back in the German bunker in Normandy.

Only this time, the ring wasn't glowing a bright orange; its aura was shining outward with a deep scarlet red, like it had done on only one other occasion before.

The Rage was trying to take over me again!

"No...NOO!" I screamed angrily, squeezing my wrist even tighter as the feverish feeling of un-controllable power and fury began to seep through my body. I was cringing more and more as the sensation stung at me, my muscles feeling like molten iron was flowing through their veins with each pump of my rapidly beating heart.

It had been a mistake to use anger to fuel my desire to create the shield, which had un-intentionally activated the Rage within the ring, causing it to think that it was actually trying to help me at the moment.

But the danger had already passed! I didn't want to use the Rage, even if it did offer me more power.

I knew that if I were to succumb to it now, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from violently lashing out at the others like I had done to Alec back in the Market Corridor!

_"ACO!"_ I heard a strange sound pierce through the hammering heartbeats that echoed within my ears, sounding like the voice of a person shouting from under water. Snapping open my stinging eyes, I looked around the interior of the cabin through the deep red haze that once again tinged my vision.

_"ACKLE!" _The voice shouted again, this time coming through more clearly as the tinge began to slowly fade away, allowing me to make out Yoda kneeling in front of me with a grim look on his face, his yellow eyes staring hard into my red visioned ones.

Suddenly I felt an arm hook around the center of my chest, throwing me up from the floor and slamming me against the back wall of the elevator.

_"AXEL!_ Don't give into it!" Alec shouted as he kept me pinned against the wall, holding me up on my feet as my body continued to cringe.

"What do you think I'm trying _not_ to do?!" I shouted venomously at him, the red tinge that clouded my vision coming back in full force, and my new desire to hurt the Guardian steadily growing with it.

But, Alec had the perfect answer to that.

Before the Rage could progress any further throughout my body, Alec grabbed the collar of my armour in one hand and drew back his other into a fist, barely hesitating as he swiped a jarring punch straight across the side of my jaw!

A sharp _SMACK!_ flashed out as the Guardian's fist made contact with my face. My head and torso jerked to the side from the force of the hit as white hot pain shot through my cheek, causing my expression to change from angry...to very stunned and pained.

Immediately after that the tinge in my vision rapidly started fading away, while the new pain I was now feeling began to dispel that of the Rage, slowly making me feel weaker and weaker as my adrenaline-high began to recede.

Alec now grabbed my collar with both hands, roughly bringing me back to face him eye to eye.

"Using anger against it won't work, that only speeds it up! You need to calm down, think of something that'll make you relax," Alec ordered to me, the length of his forearm now pressing across my armoured chest-plate in case I tried to fight him off.

I closed my eyes and took in deep clear lungful's of air, my Mind's Eye travelling to a different place entirely, blocking out the sensations of my surroundings as I thought of the one thing that had always made me calm whenever I was stressed or angry.

'_Mountains...trees...and snow,'_ I thought slowly to myself, my eyes remaining closed as I envisioned all of the landmark sights of Canada...of home.

I let out a tired groan as my knees suddenly gave out, my whole body sliding down the wall as the Rage left me completely. I felt like I just wanted to lie down and fall asleep, my whole body aching from the punishments it had taken since I had first found this thing.

As Alec knelt down next to me, helping me lean comfortably against the wall, I winced as I brought up a hand to massage my throbbing jaw.

"You have a wicked swing behind that arm," I commented tiredly to him, keeping my eyes closed as I rotated my jawbone several times.

"I'm sorry I had to do that...it seems like I'm always smacking you around whenever you start to go Berserk," Alec said, chuckling slightly as he did. I opened my eyes to look at him as an amused smile came to me.

"At least it works!" I said to him, both of us chuckling at the notion of him beating me up whenever the Rage would try to make a come-back.

But it didn't end there, we continued chuckling until we had built up into full blown laughter, both of us wedging our eyes shut as Alec sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall beside me with his arms hanging off of his raised knees. We continued laughing uncontrollably for almost a full minute, the sight of us even making Yoda chuckle slightly as he sat himself down cross-legged in front of me.

Finally, after rubbing our sore sides and wiping away several tears, we began to calm down, although still letting out a small chuckle here and there as we did.

"To avoid such instances in the future, seek clarity you must Axel. Momentary power anger brings you; quicker and easier it is, but also more destructive and more poisoning. Learn to reject this and delve deeper within yourself; another fuel source try to provide your power with, something far stronger than that which the Rage feeds on now," Yoda advised to me as he jabbed a sharp nailed finger at the area of my chest where my heart was.

"That's going to be a difficult thing to do Yoda, I'm a soldier, I was taught to control my anger and harness it into a weapon," I replied as I raised a hand and clenched my fingers into a fist, symbolizing what I was implying.

"To truly master your gift, let go of your past vocation you must. Un-learn what you have already learned throughout your years in order to truly understand the scope of the abilities you now possess. A _deeper_ feeling take your strength from, one of more importance to you than anger; draw upon the friendships you have developed in your life. Think of those whom met and inspired you have in your travels, lives whose those have been changed for the better by your presence and your actions."

I nodded slowly after the Jedi finished speaking to me, thinking on his words carefully as I began to sift through the memories of my past years. I closed my eyes and focused on the faces of the men and women from my Army unit, on all the good moments we had shared together during our times on and off our tours of the world. A small smile crept to my face as I remembered our moments of laughter, times where we had really come together as an un-blooded family.

I even began to remember the times when my closest squad-mates and I would exchange off-hand jokes to one another while being pinned under enemy fire during our tours of Afghanistan, or during the one or two boarding actions we had participated in against pirate-ships in the South China Seas.

Suddenly, as I came to those memories, I gave a small involuntary wince of inward pain that went un-noticed by the others.

At the thought of my squad-mates and Afghanistan, I unexpectedly began thinking of my last tour of duty, the one that held a horrible string of memories that had changed my life forever. My face began to wrinkle with discomfort as a floodgate was opened within my mind, allowing all of the memories of my last mission to wash over me, making my body shudder slightly as I un-willingly began to re-live them.

_'Captain Cormier was confirmed killed this morning in the latter phase of Operation Stronghold...'_ the voice of an Army doctor rang in my ears. I took in a deep breath, trying to push the memories back, but they only continued to come in even greater numbers, and worse scenarios.

_'Axel, he's got Luc! Tell Geordi to take the shot, my brother is down there!'_ hissed another voice in my ears, the voice of a man I had once respected and called my best friend for nearly fifteen years. But upon hearing his words once again, I couldn't help but give a small grimace of re-inflamed hatred at the thought of him, and how he had so utterly betrayed me not long after that particular incident.

Unknown to all of us as this was happening; the ring was starting to change again, its silver band slowly starting to glow with a dark red colour.

_'Lieutenant Sorenson. Because of the tragic deaths of the other officers_ _within your unit, and in light of your heroic efforts in saving over a hundred Afghan villagers from one of those officers during his violent mental breakdown, it is the decision of this Board to promote you to the full rank of Captain...'_ echoed the voice of a senior colonel after I had been recalled to Canada to give my full report of the incident in question personally.

_'ENOUGH!'_ my inner voice screamed.

I snapped open my eyes, jarring myself out of those memories as the other voices disappeared. I breathed deeply to calm myself; looking down and catching the last glimpse of the deep red across the ring's band vanish from sight.

As I looked back up at Yoda, I noticed that the Master was looking at me with concern, his eyes slightly narrowed as if he were probing my emotions to sense whatever it was that I had just been experiencing.

"There's one thing that I still don't get. Why are you able to draw upon the Rage so easily? Creating that shield shouldn't have made it lash out at you like that," Alec piped in, stroking his chin thoughtfully, having gone completely oblivious to the painful flashback I'd just endured.

I chuckled under my breath as I gave a small shake of my head, silently being thankful that Alec was able to un-intentionally redirect where everything was going before Yoda could press me on my recent memories.

"I think I can answer that..." I began, raising my right hand to examine the small burned holes in the fabric of my gloved ring finger.

"My grandfather was born and raised in Denmark, and his family had records placing our ancestors within the center of the Jutland area as far back as the 11th century," I stated glumly.

"So you're saying that..." began Alec, but I finished his thought for him.

"The fury of the Vikings flows through my veins. The anger and brutality of generations of barbarians makes up my DNA...and the ring knows it. That's why I'm more susceptible to the Rage's influence, and why it comes to me so quickly whenever I slip up while using its powers."

There was a long period of silence before Alec suddenly stood up, brushing himself off before turning down to me and offering a hand.

"You may have the anger of a Viking, but you also have their strength, their courage, their determination. The soul of a dead but proud race resides within you, and you have the morals of a soldier of Canada to govern it. So get up Sorenson, get up and use those traits in place of your anger, get up and use them so that you can truly master the ring and save a galaxy."

The Guardian's words at first stunned but then sunk into me, filling me with a sense of duty and pride. Both Yoda and Alec were right, I did have other strengths I could use besides that of anger. If I focused on them, and drew more from the bonds I was forming with my newfound friends, I _could_ master the abilities of the ring, and hopefully avoid using the Rage all together.

Giving a small smile and a nod of realization, I reached up and grabbed onto Alec's forearm, his offered hand grabbing onto mine as he pulled me up to my feet, a wide smile of his own stretched across his face.

(And that ladies and gentlemen is what is called...the Bro moment.)

"How was that for inspirational eh?!" the Guardian joked soon after I had stood up, abruptly breaking the feel of the moment we were all having. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, my smile widening some as I clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good enough Alec, good enough."

Turning down to Yoda, I was happy to see the small Jedi standing to his feet with a small smile of his own, silently telling me that he would remain quiet about my painful trip down memory lane.

Suddenly the elevator began to groan and creek, several orange sparks falling down around us as it did. Drawing my Phalanx while the others drew their lightsaber and blasters, we all pointed our weapons ahead of us as the cabin began slowing down.

Finally, a sliding glass door descended down in front of us as the elevator rose up and came to a jerking stop. A loud elevator chime sounded out followed by the glass door hissing and slowly rising up, giving us a clear path onto the long stretch of grey platforms and docking piers that extended far out in front of us.

_"You have now arrived at the Citadel's Military Docking yards. Please note that trespassing near military war-ships or any other designated zones is a Council offense, and is punishable by fine or incarceration."_

The announcement by Avina's cheery feminine voice through the elevator's speakers made Alec bristle slightly as we all put our weapons away.

"I'm beginning to dislike that machine more and more," he stated under his breath. I laughed slightly as I un-buckled one of the pouches on my utility belt.

"She's just doing what she's programed for. Now, take this and see if you can patch us into C-Sec's radio chatter, listen for anything that has to do with us," I told him as I took out Forsenski's omni-tool and strapped it onto the Guardian's gauntleted left forearm.

"Shouldn't be a problem..." Alec stated with a grin as he placed his right hand overtop of the tool. Right away his neck muscles stiffened and his eyes shot wide open, the pupils of his irises glowing bright silver.

After a few seconds of this he smiled again, activating the device with a small tensing of his wrist as the glow in his eyes vanished.

"I had a feeling you'd have that same ability," I remarked as Yoda and I watched him. Alec chuckled as he looked up from the orange holographic keyboard enveloping his arm.

"It's nowhere near as powerful or in-depth as yours, but why do you think its the _Guardians_ who call it Mind Mending. We wouldn't have gotten very far throughout history if we didn't have _some_ of the same abilities that our Bearer's do."

After a few seconds of button tapping, a small screen displaying a jagged zigzagging line appeared over top of the omni-tool's keyboard.

"I've hacked into Forsenski's secure transmissions, if any C-Sec agents within three hundred meters of us begin using their radios, we'll hear it through this," Alec explained as he used his other hand to indicate the screen.

_"Excellent. If Lieutenants Bailey or Chellick, or any of their patrols come searching in our direction, 300 meters should give us plenty of time to find an appropriate place to hide,"_ commented Haxon suddenly, who hadn't spoken a word since we had first set foot in this elevator.

"While I'm keeping a look out for cops, what're you gonna be doing?" Alec asked me. Turning around, I crossed over to the sleeping Jango Fett and quickly slung him across the back of my shoulders.

"I figured I'd give you a break while we go shopping for our escape ship. You keep us out of C-Sec's clutches, and I'll carry him the rest of the way," I said with a head jerk to the Mandalorian's body, wincing slightly as I became accustomed to his heavier dead bulk.

Without warning Alec threw his head back and stretched out his arms up to the ceiling in mock praise to the gods.

"THANK YOU!" he shouted out in relief.

Suddenly the distant whine of patrol cars echoed out against the metal of the Docks as two of the said vehicles floated up into view from the apartment complexes below us.

_"Time is of the essence, we must leave now!"_ Haxon ordered to us.

"Come on, lets go!" I whispered sharply to the other two as I tightened my grip on Jango, bending my knees slightly before quickly creeping out of the elevator, Yoda jumping up onto Alec's shoulder as the Guardian followed in my wake.

* * *

"My agents say they were forced to fire an ML-77 once they saw that Axel and his men were about to escape," the Salarian officer reported apologetically over his shoulder to Bailey's seat after shutting down his omni-tool, bringing both hands back to their re-sealed car's controls as he brought the vehicle soaring up toward the jutting piers of the Docks.

The Docks themselves were really just one big stretch of metal, connected to all the piers and facilities needed to house the visiting battle-ships of the Council and the Systems Alliance. On the right side was the actual docking area itself extending out overtop of the stretch of apartment and housing complexes that ran along the belly of the Presidium Ring, while on the left was a large purple mass of wall and storage complexes that ran down the entire length of the Docks, containing dozens of alleyway entrances, warehouses and management offices. Stretching up nearly a thousand feet into the air, this huge wall also had several levels of Docking piers and platforms jutting out from it, with even more War-ships of various other races docked overhead.

This succeeded in creating a dark shadow across the entire docking area from the hundreds of military ships coming from all over the galaxy that floated dormant above it.

As the Salarian continued to fly the car, one of the damaged Turian cars came up along the officer's left side, following them the whole way up as they cleared overtop of the many massive Turian and Human war-ship's docked in-between each of the piers and platforms that went throughout the area.

Bailey blew out an angered breath.

"We ordered those men to use all means they could to bring them in _alive!_ Now we'll be lucky if we can even find the bodies."

Chellick sniffed painfully from the passenger seat, rubbing his bruised shoulder that Axel had fired his concussive round into.

"I doubt this Alec creature can be taken down by a single missile blast, but we won't know if Axel or Yoda survived until we check out the top of the elevator," the Turian officer said before he brought up another piece of tissue paper to his injured nose.

After a minute or so of flying toward the metal elevator shaft that ended once brought up to the Dock yard level, the two cars slowed down to a dead hover twenty feet above the shaft.

"Agent, our car's search-light was taken out in that last scuffle, activate yours and shine it onto the elevator's entranceway for us," ordered the Salarian into a hand-held radio connected to the dashboard in front of him.

_"Yes sir,"_ responded the Turian driver of the neighbouring car. As Chellick, Bailey, and the Salarian leaned over their dashboard to get a better look at the lift below them, a bright white circle of light flashed onto the darkened shaft.

Narrowing their eyes, all three of the men shook their heads in dis-belief at what they were seeing. All of them inched even further forward, nearly pressing their faces against the windshield as Bailey supported himself against the Salarian's and Turian's shoulders while leaning out of the space in-between their two seats.

"The cabin _survived_?!" Bailey stated in shock as he and his co-workers surveyed the sparking elevator's interior, taking extra note of the raised glass door and the utter lack of any occupants inside!

"It looks like it barely took a scratch rather than a missile! How is that possible?" Chellick asked to no one in particular as he looked closer at the light damage the cabin had taken.

"Agent, rotate your light around the area. Do you see any signs of where the terrorists may have gone to?" the Salarian asked into his radio.

After a few seconds of the searchlight moving around the area, the agent in the other car gave his response.

_"Negative sir, no sign of them."_

"Alright lieutenants, I'm enacting a Z pattern search, our terrorists are on foot and most likely looking to steal a ship so they can make their escape. Chellick, call in as many vehicles and free agents that you have left at your disposal, I want them here in under ten minutes," the Salarian officer ordered to the Turian beside him.

"We've already tried that approach _twice_ now, what's going to make this attempt any different?" Bailey asked the officer from the back. The Salarian pointed over to the large mass of wall and complexes that rose up on their right side.

"All of the war-ships in this area are either guarded by their highly armed crews or locked and secured by advanced anti-hacking systems, it would take something as complex as a rogue A.I. to break through them. (Really? Hahahaha! Because, you know, who would have one of those right?) There's also no way out of here aside from the elevator's, checkpoints, and Fast Transit terminals set around the Docks, once Chellick's men get here we can have those sealed off and guarded," the Salarian explained to the two.

"These terrorists have driven themselves into a box gentlemen, now its time for us to close the lid on it."

With that the officer manipulated his car into surging forward and flying farther off behind the elevator shaft to await the summoned reinforcements, while the damaged Turian patrol car began to rotate its search light around the area again, slowly travelling down the length of the Docks as it continued its search for the missing criminals.

* * *

As the two hover-cars broke away from each other, all three of us slowly blew out the breath we had been tensely holding in. Cautiously stepping out from the group of large metal transport containers we'd hidden ourselves behind, we watched as the car carrying Bailey and Chellick flew off down to the far end of the Docks.

_"All units, all units, this is an emergency response call, any agents currently un-occupied within the Embassy District converge and meet up at the Military Docks within ten minutes. Repeat, converge and meet up with Lieutenants Chellick and Bailey at the Military Docks within ten minutes." _

Chellick's voice broke out through Forsenski's omni-tool speakers as the device caught on to his radio announcement.

Before any of us could say a word, the blinding searchlight from the Turian patrol car flashed down onto our area, forcing us to quickly duck back behind the containers a millisecond before its glare could fall on us!

All of us remained as still as stone, not moving a muscle as the searchlight shone onto the containers, casting a dark shadow as it illuminated the area around us. It remained there for several agonizing seconds before lazily drifting away from us.

Peeking our heads around the corner, we were relieved to see the damaged hover car slowly making its way down the rest of the Docks in the opposite direction that Chellick's car had gone, sweeping its light back and forth across the platforms and piers as it kept searching for us.

"That was too close," Alec said, blowing out another breath as he leaned back against one of the containers.

"We don't have time to rest, our precious ten minutes are counting down as we speak," I said as I shifted Jango's body slightly, looking from side to side as I checked to see if the coast was clear of any watching eyes.

After giving him a nod, Alec quickly crept out in front of me, still bearing Yoda on his shoulder.

Following behind him as close as I could, we both began dashing down the long line of massive Turian and Human war-ships that towered over us, moving as silently as possible from cover to cover to avoid being heard or seen by any of the maintenance crews or soldiers that operated around each ship.

Finally after a few minutes of constant running and ducking behind crates or idle machinery, Alec held up his hand and brought us to a stop behind a large pile of small boxes, going down on his haunches as he looked out at all the ships that went on further down the Docks ahead of us.

"What is it?" I asked with a wince as I slid Jango off my back, going down on my own haunches as I placed the Mandalorian in a sitting position.

"This isn't going to work. Nearly every ship docked in this place is a few times bigger than the CN Tower, and they probably require a crew of several hundred just to fly them. Unless you want to hijack one of these things Errol Flynn style, we're going to need a different plan for getting out of here," Alec said over to me as he peeked his eyes over top of the pile of boxes, looking from pier to pier at each of the enormous ships docked in front of us.

"We need a ship that's small and fast, and preferably more lightly guarded than these ones..." he uttered as he gazed up at a particularly large and well armoured Alliance Heavy-Cruiser not far away from us, one that required over a dozen mechanical docking claws just to keep it attached to its pier, which at the moment had over a hundred heavily armed Alliance soldiers marching up and down it amidst its teams of maintenance crew-men that worked around its openings.

"Uhh Alec..." I suddenly piped in as I tapped him on the arm. The Guardian turned to me with a frown.

"Why not just take _that_ one then?" I suggested as I pointed over his shoulder. Frowning even more in confusion, Alec turned his head to follow in the direction my finger was pointing.

Sure enough, gently docked against an empty pier with large cargo containers strewn across it, was a moderate sized Alliance Corvette.

Back in my universe, I had read up a little on the ships used by the Alliance Navy on the website _Mass Effect Wiki_, learning that the Corvette was a ten-man fighting vessel capable of interstellar travel and combat support missions. Fast and easily manned, the Corvette could not only moderately hold its own in a fight but also easily fly around enemy defenses or outrun pursuing ships.

_'Just what we need.'_

Alec's frown of confusion was deepening into a scowl of horror as he looked over at the Corvette. (What sorcery is this?!)

"Now, how the hell do people notice this stuff before me!" he asked as he gestured erratically over at the ship, as if un-able to comprehend that it had been sitting there the entire time he had been looking around the area.

_"I've just finished hacking into the Dock's security sensors. My scans indicate that this Corvette in particular has just received a large shipment of Alliance equipment and has been fully prepped for departure to Earth within the next three hours. Currently there are only two Alliance patrol-men stationed at the ship's port entrance, while the rest of its crew and maintenance personnel have been given the rest of the waiting period off until the appointed time,"_ Haxon explained through my ear.

"Its like its been gift-dropped into our lap, I say we take it now," I said to the others as I leaned over and pulled Jango's unconscious body back across my shoulders. Suddenly we heard heavy footsteps approaching towards us from the other side of the box pile.

"Should we begin removing these from the sides or just take them straight from the top?" a female voice asked to another person who must have been accompanying her.

Alec, Yoda, and I all gasped in horror as we immediately bolted up and scrambled away from the pile of boxes toward several more transport containers off to our left!

Immediately after we'd thrown ourselves in-behind these new containers, several of the boxes started getting removed from the pile, quickly exposing where we had been hiding only a second ago.

"You start taking em' from the side, I'll reach up higher and begin removing em' from the top," came a male voice thick with an almost Brooklyn like accent. As the three of us remained silently pressed against the containers, we could hear shuffling as the two began to remove each box from the pile.

"I think I left my loading tools somewhere behind those containers over there, hold on a sec..." the Brooklyner said as we heard him begin making his way around the box pile toward where we were hiding!

I gawked as I looked down at the floor around us, quickly finding the red fabric tool-bag in question pressed against the side of my foot.

With a sharp jerk of my head in the direction we needed to take to get to the Corvette, Alec and I silently bore Jango and Yoda away as we moved quickly from the containers, vanishing behind several other obstacles at the exact second the crew-man came walking around the corner.

Being none-the-wiser, he simply bent down and scooped up his bag of tools before returning to his co-working, seemingly not noticing the slight boot-prints we'd left in the layers of dust that had built up around the containers.

After watching him disappear from our hiding spot, both the Guardian and I turned back in the direction of the Corvette, quickly making our way across the large wide-open space between us and the beginning of the ship's pier.

Being as light of foot as we could be (which is pretty hard when one of you is wearing Nazi combat boots) we made the crossing in under a minute without being detected, only once having to duck behind a parked loading machine near the guard-railed edge of the Docks, which dropped back down to the apartment complexes where we had been briefly reunited with Forsenski.

The reason behind this sudden deviation from our path had been to avoid an oncoming patrol of Human and Turian Marines belonging to the crews of the ships docked around the area. As they walked past us, we could hear them laughing and joking with each other, sharing stories of past adventures or showing holograms of loved ones they had back on Palaven and Earth.

I cocked an eyebrow with a thin smile spreading across my face as I watched them shrink further away from us, inwardly touched by the sense of camaraderie these soldiers were showing for one another, which was in stark contrast to the animosity mostly displayed between the two races during the game.

After a few more seconds of covert movement that brought us out onto the pier, the Guardian and I finally came crouching up behind a randomly discarded container placed only a dozen feet away from the guarded port-side entrance that Haxon had informed us about earlier.

Keeping his body pressed against the metal of the container, Alec quietly peeked his head around the corner, immediately sighting both of the armoured Alliance soldiers that had been posted to guard the Corvette's ceilinged docking corridor (similar to the one always used by the Normandy whenever she would dock at the Citadel during the game), which at the moment was extended out from the side of the pier and attached to the ship's hull.

"Hey, did you hear? Turns out those run-away terrorists were able to evade C-Sec again, this time they managed to steal a hover car and escape the Market District completely," one of the soldiers said to his partner, his voice coming out through the speakers in his helmet with a radio-like tinge.

The second soldier, who was sitting lazily on top of a horizontally placed container, gave a small laugh as he laid his activated Alliance assault-rifle across his lap.

"A friend of mine just happened to be passing through the Presidium park when those guys crashed down in their elevator cabin. He told me that when the army of agents got there, one of this Axel guy's goons turned himself into a giant Orangutan or something, managed to knock an entire Mantis right out of the sky," the second one explained to the first.

Alec frowned as he pulled himself away from the corner, all three of us now remaining completely silent as we listened to the rest of the conversation. "Nonono, I heard it was something more like a giant Chimpanzee... or a Lemur even," the first one corrected enthusiastically.

There was a long silence between the two before the second one spoke again, cocking his head slightly as if confused.

"Why would he turn himself into a Lemur? Those things never bother fighting, they just jump and crap everywhere."

Alec's frown deepened as he listened to the two conflicting accounts, his eyes flicking back and forth as he became more and more confused by the outlandish claims.

"How dense can people be around here? I turned myself into a goril..." Alec began whispering to the rest of us, his voice getting slightly higher as he began to speak in a defensive tone. But before he could become any louder and give away our position, I snapped up an arm and clamped my hand over his mouth, cutting him off and causing the rest of his sentence to be muffled against my gloved palm.

"Not the time!" I whispered sharply over to him, listening closely for any signs of the soldiers having heard Alec's outburst. Luckily the two only continued talking, moving on to other subjects like Lemur food or our possible whereabouts at the moment.

"Alright here's a question for you then, how are we getting past Doc and Dopes?" Alec asked after he pushed my hand away from his mouth, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. At the moment I had my eye peeking around the other end of the container, getting my own look at the two guards.

They didn't seem to be that much of a threat, judging by their lackadaisical postures and how they appeared to be solely concentrated on their trivial conversations. However, that could only have been a facade.

Both of these men were fully armoured from head to toe, and appeared to be exceptionally physically fit.

"We'll have to time it carefully, I'll place Jango down here and enter in from the side with concussive rounds on high. You and Y..." I began as I lay Jango's body leaning against the container before turning to face the Guardian directly.

That was when I noticed something different about him, something that had been attached to his left shoulder only a second ago was now no-where in sight.

"Here's a better question Alec. Where's Yoda?" I asked blankly as I stared at him.

"Hey! This is a restricted ar...What the hell is that thing?!" one of the soldiers began as he and his partner snapped to attention, activating their assault rifles to full power. Both mine and Alec's eyes widened as we drew our pistols simultaneously, whirling around either side of the container and training our weapons on the alerted guards.

Yoda stood before the two with his hands at his sides, his lightsaber hilt still clipped to his belt. At the sight of Alec and I advancing on them with guns drawn, one of the soldiers turned his rifle on me with slightly shaking hands.

"Oh shit, these are the terrorists!" he said over his shoulder to his partner, who still had his weapon trained on Yoda. However, for some reason the second guard was far calmer than his counterpart. He held his rifle with a steady grip, but his head was cocked to the side slightly, as if he were either confused...or curious about something.

"And that's the guy who can turn himself into a Sloth!" the first stated as he turned his rifle on Alec.

"I turned myself into a _gorilla_ you moron!" Alec snapped back, clearly irritated by this man's inability to get the story straight. Suddenly the second guard snapped his fingers, as if having just figured something out.

"Wait a minute, I know that guy! He's Yoda, the Jedi Master from Star..." but he never got the chance to finish. As he was talking, Yoda waved his hand through the air, using the Force to touch the minds of the two men.

"Notice you do not, and forgotten you have, the four men known as the terrorists which C-Sec seeks. Also, appears it does that the ship is still as it was the last time you looked upon it before our arrival," the Jedi commanded in his aged voice as he slowly swept his hands out in front of himself, manipulating the soldiers' senses with his Jedi Mind Trick.

There was a short pause as the two stood like they were frozen, not saying a word or moving a muscle. Then they both suddenly shook their heads, as if coming out of a daydream.

"What just happened? Weren't we talking to someone just a second ago?" the first soldier said, waving his rifle back and forth between the areas Alec and I were standing in. The second was rubbing his helmet with one hand, shaking his head again as if having a headache.

"I...I don't know man, I...I think I'm having something of a mini black-out here," he muttered to the first as he slowly walked over to where Yoda was standing. The now grinning Jedi quickly stepped out of the way to allow the clueless soldier to walk right past him. The soldier stopped in the exact spot where the Master had been only a second ago, looking from side to side in a vain effort to find something, while both of them completely ignored the rest of us.

"I could swear there was a tiny green guy standing here just now," the soldier said as he holstered his rifle onto his back, gesturing frantically around him. Both Alec and I frowned at each other as we lowered our weapons.

I had never seen or heard of a Mind Trick having these kinds of effects before in Star Wars media, but then again it was probably just another example of Yoda's awesome mastery of the Force.

He had made us virtually invisible!

Frowning in suspicion as I cautiously advanced toward the first soldier, I raised one hand and slowly waved it in front of the man's tinted helmet visor. But to my surprise he didn't react, only continuing to look about himself in confusion. Clipping my Phalanx pistol to my belt, I brought my hand as close to the soldier's visor as I could without touching him and snapped my fingers, doing so twice more after that test registered no response.

"Wasn't there also a blonde guy standing right over there?" the first asked over to the second as he began walking over toward Alec, causing me to stumble to the side in order to avoid him walking straight into me!

"They can't see us!" Alec said over to me with a wide grin, slipping Jango's pistol back under his belt as the soldier came to a stop right in front of him, looking from left to right as he searched across the area.

"Or _hear_ us it seems," I concurred with a nod.

Suddenly Alec's grin got even wider as he began cracking the knuckles on each hand, readying them for a smack down.

"I wonder if they can't _feel_ us either," he said to himself as he balled his right hand into a fist and drew back his arm, intending to send the first soldier sprawling across the pier for the Sloth statement he'd made.

"NNowanhwayaha!" I blurted out, speaking gibberish as I quickly lunged over and grabbed onto his forearm just as he threw his punch, stopping it only a few inches away from the oblivious man's face.

"Our ten minutes are almost up, we don't have time to be pushing this advantage we've been given. Lets just get on the ship, get her ready, and then wait for Shepard to leave the station," I emphasized as I released his arm and began walking past him and the two bumbling soldiers, disappearing around the corner of the container we'd been hiding behind as I went to retrieve Jango.

As I turned my back on him, Alec watched me leave for a brief second before turning back to the soldier standing in front of him. With a quick motion of his hand, Alec brought up his middle finger and sharply flicked the man's helmet on the forehead!

A metallic ping sounded out as the Guardian's finger made contact, and the soldier jerked backwards in shock as he felt it.

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!" the soldier shouted as he swept his rifle back and forth.

"What is it?" the second one asked as the first began spinning around in a circle, waving his gun around like a maniac.

"Something just touched me! I'm telling you we're not alone here!" he said frantically to his partner. The second only shook his head sadly as he walked up to the first and swiped an open palm slap straight across the side of his helmeted head.

"Get a hold of yourself, we've got a ship to defend and you're busy blathering on about ghosts!" the second barked as he and the first went over to stand at attention on either side of the docking corridor.

The first was rubbing the side of his head as he looked over at the second.

"Don't you think we should report this to the Captain?"

"Report what? That both of us thought we saw someone, and then you took an imaginary bump on the head?!"

As the two continued to bicker between each other, Alec was chuckling madly as if he were high on helium. By now I had returned with Jango slumped over my shoulders, but instead of laughing I was shaking my head with disapproval.

"What?" Alec asked through his laughter as I walked up to him and the Jedi.

"Not cool," I said to him sternly as we made our way out onto the docking corridor, passing between the two arguing soldiers un-noticed.

"Oh come on, have some fun. Admit it you thought it was funny too," Alec said as we quickly walked down the corridor's length and came up to the Corvette's port side entrance-way. A small smile came to me as I looked around the entrance for an activation button of some kind.

"Maybe a little bit," I conceded.

After a few seconds of searching, I found a small glowing red pad set up next to the side of the entrance. Without thinking, I reached out my left hand and made to press it.

_"WAIT! Don't touch that!"_ Haxon shouted in my ear. I jumped as I yanked my hand away from the pad.

"Why what's wrong?" I asked.

_"I just finished sifting through the Docks' security information a second ago. Every war-ship in this entire area has been locked and secured with an advanced anti-hacking encryption system, if you had touched that pad it would have thrown up a red flag for every soldier and C-Sec agent within three miles of this pier to see."_

Both Alec and I blinked as we looked at the pad with a wary eye, all three of us taking a cautious step back.

"Well that's great. Then how are we suppose to get in?" the Guardian asked.

_"Luckily I have a solution. Activate your omni-tool and I will interface with the Corvette's on-board computers."_

"I thought you said it was an anti-hacking system? How are you going to hack into the ship if you can't..._hack_...into the ship?" I asked hesitantly as I raised my left arm, activating the Savant-X that I had strapped under my black gauntlet.

_"Place the palm of your hand against the Corvette's hull. And I'm not going to be hacking into it per say, I'm just going to slightly alter the basic programing codes of the security system. With this fundamental change, a domino effect will occur within the higher codes that will quickly travel through to the ship's most advanced security functions, changing the program completely and allowing us access into the ship as if we were one of the crew."_(I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's still called hacking in some way)

All of us nodded at each other with surprised expressions, clearly impressed by Haxon's plan. As the glowing orange hologram surrounded my forearm, I extended and pressed my hand against the cool blue and white metal that made up the Corvette.

_"Hold still..."_ the A.I. muttered as a tingling sensation travelled through my arm and fingers. For a few seconds we all waited in silence, well silence mixed with the echoes of the two soldiers continuing to argue with each other back at the entrance to the corridor.

Yoda, Alec, and I all held our breath as the seconds ticked by, dreading that at any moment a blaring alarm would squawk out and bring a thousand heavily armed combatants storming over to this location.

But to our surprise the red pad next to the entrance suddenly flicked to green. After pulling my hand back, we could all hear a deep hiss emanate from behind the large square door as it retracted from its cradle and slid to the side. Gently swirling clouds of white steam rolled down from vents in the ceiling of the interior airlock, slightly clouding the deep blue lights that illuminated the area.

_"Gentlemen, welcome aboard the _SSV Corsica_,"_Haxon announced as the three of us stepped inside, the outer door sliding back into place behind us.

"_The Corsica_? That's the name of the island Napoleon Bonaparte was born on," I remarked as a deep white scanning field hummed into existence, almost exactly like the one used on Shepard and his team whenever they would return to the Normandy after a mission.

"Hmm, I don't know. Don't you think we should give it a better name, something more fitting for a band of pirates," Alec said as the scanning field began to travel over our bodies.

"We're not pirates Alec, we're just taking what we need to help Shepard save the galaxy, that's all," I said back to him as the scanner stopped and began to travel back across us towards the inner door of the airlock.

"What about the Black Pearl, or the Botany Bay?" Alec asked with a grin, clearly ignoring what I was saying.

"We are _not_ pirates..." I began, but the Guardian was on a roll now!

"Wait a minute, I got one! What about...Captain Morgan's _Rum-Bucket_!" he announced to us as if he were pitching a corporate proposal, throwing his hands up into the air with a dramatic flair!

Both Yoda and I had to choke down the laughter we could suddenly feel bubbling up in our throats. I whirled on Alec, a wide grin of my own on my face.

"We are not _pir_...!" I began repeating, when suddenly the _Corsica_'s on-board V.I. cut me off.

_"Logged. The commanding officer is aboard, XO Turgenson stands relieved."_ As the female voice of the ship's Virtual Intelligence made its usual announcement, the inner door of the airlock slid to the side, finally giving us full access to the ship itself.

However, all us were remaining rooted to the spot, feeling un-easy about what the V.I. had just said.

_'XO Turgenson stands relieved...'_

"Haxon, is this Turgenson guy on the ship right now?" I asked as we eyed the open door warily, both Alec and Yoda laying their hands on their weapons. If the second-in-command had been left behind to over-see things in the captain's absence, all it would take is one push of the alarm and we'd be thrown in a C-Sec jail cell before we'd have a chance to say 'Damn it!'

_"Thankfully no. The ship's logs say that a Captain Harold felt it was safe enough with the anti-hacking system in place, so he asked Commander Turgenson to accompany him and the rest of the crew during their down time. The _Corsica_'s V.I. is simply replaying what its programed for whenever it detects the airlock being used after the Captain has departed."_ Haxon answered.

All of us blew out a dramatic relieved sigh as we let our tense muscles relax, stepping easily out through the doorway and into the ship's interior. The walkway that ran in front of the airlock looked a lot like the interior of the Normandy, except it was more narrower and had no lines of seats or consoles on either side of it. As we began to fan out, I looked farther down the walkway into the center of the ship.

Instead of seeing the usual glow of a Galaxy Map, there was a large black conference table set up in the middle of the main room with ten cushioned seats of the same colour placed around it. Further behind that I could make out the large plated door of the ship's elevator built into the bulkhead that spread across the entire width of the room. On either side of the elevator door was a sliding door that most likely led to another room.

The entire area was bathed in the classic blue lighting that had been used to illuminate the inside of the _Normandy_ during the course of Mass Effect 1.

_'Those doors probably go to the crew's quarters or the Armoury,'_ I thought as I leaned over and placed the sleeping Jango on the floor with his back sitting against the bulkhead of the corridor.

Meanwhile, further to the front of the ship, Alec and Yoda had climbed up a three-step flight of stairs into the _Corsica_'s cockpit. As the two looked around, they could make out a portion of the Docks ahead of them through a large semi-circle windshield that curved across the entire width of the room.

An equal semi-circle of glowing orange control consoles stretched out underneath it, while several large display screens fanned out overtop of the windshield, each showing a differently rendered layout of the ship or a different star-chart used for navigation.

As Alec came up and leaned his arms across the back of the large metal Captain's chair set up in the very center of the cockpit, he looked around at the range of consoles spanning out before him.

Numbering off in his head as he scanned his eyes across the consoles, he counted no more than four black swivel chairs set up around him.

"So we've got the Captain, the XO, four bridge-staff, and those two idiots outside…" Alec said to himself as he briefly jabbed his thumb over to the left side of the ship to indicate the two soldiers they had left guarding the docking-corridor.

"What would that make the last two? The cook and the janitor?" Alec joked down to Yoda.

_"All units continue on to the next ship over, keep on the look out for suspects matching the terrorists' descriptions."_ Both Alec and Yoda's eyes widened as James Forsenski's omni-tool sprang to life around the Guardian's forearm, playing Lieutenant Chellick's voice through its speakers.

"No. That can't be, it's too soon!" Alec said with a shake of his head as he analyzed the omni-tool.

"What's wrong?" I asked as I stepped up into the cockpit, leaving Jango behind in the corridor.

"We should still have over a minute left before Chellick's reinforcements even get here, but the omni-tool says they're already within three hundred meters of the ship!" Alec answered as he indicated the device around his arm, which was now broadcasting the voices of several C-Sec officers as they began reporting their findings to Chellick.

"What!" I said as all three of us rushed over to the Corsica's windshield, Alec and I leaning over the board of consoles to get a better look through it. Unfortunately Yoda had to struggle for a few seconds because of his small height, jumping up and latching onto the edge of the consoles, swinging his small legs wildly underneath himself before he slowly heaved his body up to stand on top of the console next to me.

As the three of us squinted our eyes through the windshield, we soon saw several C-Sec patrol cars flash across our field of vision, flying in a diamond formation with their searchlights sweeping across the Docks.

_"This is search-team 45, security around the _SSV Toronto_ has not been breached. We are now moving on to the _SSVs Washington_, _Moscow_, and _Corsica_ as our next three search areas,"_ reported an agent's voice through Forsenski's omni-tool.

_'They already have forty-five search-teams looking for us?'_ I thought in horror as I turned over to Alec.

"We won't even have enough time to power up the engines before they'd try boarding the ship," Alec stated as he raised a hand to the windshield to indicate the squadrons of patrol cars that were now beginning to zoom across the Docks in greater numbers, each one slowly hovering over a docked ship with their search-light beams flashing across it.

"There's only one way I can think of to get out of this," I said slowly.

"Which is?" asked Yoda from the side as he continued to look out through the windshield. Without a word I drew my Phalanx from its belt clip and began making my way for the airlock door.

"Alec's right, we won't be able to launch the ship with an army of agents smashing through the hull, so I'm going to have to go out there and buy us some time," I said over my shoulder to the others as I stepped into the interior airlock, tapping the glowing red pad that would re-scan the room and open the outer door.

"Whoa, whoa! Axel, if those C-Sec agents have combined their search with the soldiers we saw guarding the ships in this area, you could be going up against as many as a thousand heavily armed people. You'd be either arrested or gunned down before you could even get a shot off," Alec said as he followed me into the airlock, making us stop by grabbing onto my shoulder and spinning me around slightly.

"Bailey's after _me_ Alec, I'm the big bad terrorist remember. If I can evade capture long enough, it'll give you guys the time you need to launch this thing before C-Sec decides to come back looking for you," I began as the white field of energy began to scan the interior of the airlock, passing over both mine and Alec's bodies as we stared hard at each other.

"If you got a better idea, say it now, or else let go of my shoulder!" I snapped at him as I shoved his hand away from me.

"I do actually," he began with grin as he drew out one of Jango's pistols, clicking the silver button on the back of the barrel that set it to go fully automatic.

"I can help double your bought time before we either get gunned down or arrested. Or...more preferably, we can both draw them off and evade C-Sec entirely, THEN come back here and launch the ship without any fear of getting caught," the Guardian suggested as the scanning process ended, the ship's outer door soon hissing and sliding open behind me.

_"Logged. The commanding officer is ashore, XO Turgenson has the deck,"_ stated the _Corsica_'s looping V.I.

I gave a small scoff as Alec inclined his head over to the docking corridor now in front of us, silently telling me that we had to get going.

"This ship is probably going to be our only way off the Citadel, we're still going to need someone to stay here to make sure that it..." I began saying to Alec, when suddenly we both heard an amused voice loudly clearing his throat.

Looking over to the still open door that led back into the ship, both of us saw Yoda standing in the center of the doorway with his arms behind his back, a thin smile on his wrinkled face.

"Well...Yoda, I didn't want to..." I began saying apologetically, but the Jedi held up a three-fingered hand as he chuckling in his croaky voice.

"Have no fear Axel, remain here and tend to Fett's wounds I shall. Find you will the ship fully prepared and still within our possession upon both of your returns," the Master stated contently. Suddenly before either of us could say another word, the inner door of the airlock quickly shut in front of the little green man with a hiss, un-expectedly ending the decision in his favour.

"Well...I guess that settles that. Come on!" I quickly said to Alec as we both began running down the docking corridor. As we exited out onto the pier, both of us blew past the two Alliance soldiers who were still bickering about ghosts and hallucinations and whatever else they could throw at each other.

Their arguing only became re-inflamed as Alec accidentally brushed against the first soldier during our flight, causing him to reel in shock as he whipped out his rifle again.

"You see! Right there, RIGHT THERE! Something just touched me again!" the first nearly shouted to the second as he frantically swung his head from side to side, looking for any sign of the 'Ghost' that was lurking around the ship. The second could only shake his head and face-palm his visor in annoyance.

* * *

"Have we had any sightings yet?" Bailey asked the Salarian officer as he leaned in from their patrol car's back seat, looking over the dash-board at the army of several hundred C-Sec agents and Dock soldiers that were marching from ship to ship down the length of the Docks. The thundering stomps from the teams of agents could be heard clearly within the car; despite how far up they were flying.

Before the Salarian could give an answer to his question, a loud pistol shot cut clean through the air as a glowing thermal round sunk into the underside of the vehicle!

"Where did that come from?!" the Salarian officer said as he, Bailey, and Chellick all began looking around the area below them.

"Uh gentlemen, is that who I think it is?" the Turian lieutenant asked as he pointed down through the windshield. Leaning closer, all three of them began looking back and forth between each other in suspicion once they realized what they were looking at.

Standing directly in the middle of the long stretch of platform that made up the Docks were Axel and Alec!

Axel was standing with rigid determination, his right arm still pointing the smoking white pistol that he had fired up at them. As Axel glared up at Bailey with narrowed eyes, Alec was jumping up and down in the air next to him, waving his arms above his head like a lunatic!

"Hey! HEY YOU! OVER HERE!" the second terrorist shouted up to them as he did his little dance, earning a slightly half confused, half annoyed look from Axel in the process. Almost immediately after seeing them, the Salarian officer grabbed the hand-held radio connected to his dashboard.

"All units, all units! Suspects Axel and Alec have been sighted in the..." the officer began barking into the speaker, when suddenly Chellick grabbed his forearm.

"Something's not right. Where are Yoda and the other man? And why are they all of a sudden giving away their position?" Chellick asked as he kept his gazed focused on the two.

"Does it matter? We have eyes and weapons on them now, I'm ordering the agents to make the arrest," the Salarian retorted.

"They've led us on an elaborate chase across half the damn Citadel. Many of our agents have been injured, some even killed, trying to bring these two in, and now suddenly they pop out of nowhere waving a big neon sign saying 'Here we are!'?" Bailey pointed out.

"This is the closest we've come to nabbing these two since the park incident. The Yoda creature is nowhere in sight to help them, and we now have ten times the air and man-power than we did before. The advantage is in our hands and I say we take it now!" the officer stated with finality as he brought his attention back to his radio.

"We thought we had the advantage too and look what happened to us!" Bailey snapped as he jabbed a thumb over to Chellick's bloodied broken nose, while briefly showing off his metal arm cast.

"Don't think you can underestimate Axel, or especially Alec. Those two have unpredictable abilities when you press their backs up against a wall," Chellick added in, nodding his head down to the two criminals.

"This is _my_ operation now lieutenants, we proceed at _my_ discretion! And I say we're taking them into custody NOW!" the Salarian barked at the two as he spoke harshly into the radio.

"All units! Suspects are dead-a-head within the Docking perimeter, you are authorized to use any and all force to bring them in alive!"

With that, the officer used both hands to tap into the car's controls, shooting the vehicle forward as the army of agents and Dock soldiers all began to charge toward the blonde duo. As the three officers flew through the air, four more C-Sec patrol cars came screeching into formation on both sides of their vehicle, the sirens and rapid flashing lights placed on their rooves going wild.

"I've got a bad feeling we're going to regret this..." Chellick whispered back to Bailey as the two men activated their pistols, just in case something went wrong.

* * *

A thunderous roar shot up from the hundreds of C-Sec agents and soldiers as soon as the Salarian gave his order. The entire platform shook as the multi-racial army stormed toward us, whooping and shouting at the top of their lungs, some of them even taking the time to shoot off random concussive rounds in our direction!

Alec and I remained in the spot we had chosen to reveal ourselves from, the Guardian still jumping up and down in the air, while I took an extra second to raise the Phalanx straight into the sky and fire off two more shots, ensuring that I got the attention of every search-team in the area.

Soon after that we both started ducking and dodging as stray shots began to come at us from the thrashing, shouting maw of armoured multi-coloured bodies!

"I think it's working!" Alec shouted over to me with a grin, barely being heard over the yelling and war cries that were coming closer and closer toward us. I bared my teeth as I staggered backwards, a powerful shot from one of the Turian soldiers catching my shields full on in the front, causing them to flare around me briefly.

"No shit it's working! RUN!" I shouted to him, all traces of humour disappearing from my voice as I briefly grabbed onto his arm and yanked him behind me, both of us sprinting down the massive stretch of open platform as fast as we could.

Behind us the C-Sec army continued running at top speed to catch up, still shouting and firing off random bursts from their rifles.

Overhead Bailey's patrol car matched its speed with ours, keeping itself just slightly behind us, while the four new patrols around it flashed their blinding white search beams down on us, casting bright circles of light onto our backsides as we ran.

Now I felt like I was in that scene from _Dead Man's Chest_ where Captain Jack Sparrow had to run down a nice tropical beach, all while being chased by a large tribe of hungry cannibals!

We poured every last reserve of energy into our legs, both of us shouting along with the rest of the army, straining our muscles to the max as we continued our flight. War-ships of every kind blew past my peripheral vision; going by us one after the other as the Human and Turian security forces stationed around each suddenly started becoming aware of our presence.

Soon hundreds more soldiers began to stream out from each of the piers that we passed, all of them shouting as they mixed into the charging army that pursued us, quickly expanding it to nearly three times its original size!

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!" Alec cried as he spun around and fired Jango's blaster over the army's heads, causing dozens of the agents and soldiers to stagger and tumble overtop of each other as many of them instinctively ducked low to the ground.

This sudden traffic jam of bodies caused a large portion of the army still behind them to become an entangled mass of limbs and angered shouting as they all tried picking themselves up.

Before the proudly grinning Alec could snap off some cheesy one-liner in response to his handy-work, I skid to a stop and grabbed him by the back collar of his uniform, yanking him behind me again as we resumed our running.

"We're Canadian, we'll remember it later!"

For a little under a minute we continued running down the center of the open Docks at break-neck speed, our eyes searching along the thousand foot tall stretch of purple metaled walls for any exit or alleyway that hadn't been locked or barricaded by C-Sec. Behind us, the army had successfully sorted itself out and had now resumed its chase.

"Over here! Go! Go! Go!" I shouted to the Guardian as I spotted a single un-obstructed alleyway carved into the wall mass on our left.

"Actually, I don't think we're going anywhere but a jail-cell now..." Alec stated with a wince. Both of us skid to a dead stop as I too noticed what he was talking about.

The echoing roar from the army's shouting was suddenly increased ten-fold as ANOTHER army of C-Sec agents and Dock soldiers materialized several hundred feet out in front of us!

Hundreds of armed men and women stormed into view from both sides of the Docks, charging out from docking piers, alleyways, or simply running toward us from farthing down the stretch of platform. We were now stuck in between two raging hordes, with only a single alley as our means of escape!

"Shall we run for our lives?" Alec asked politely over to me, his voice remaining surprisingly calm despite the situation. Since this was probably going to be our last conversation as free men, I thought it only appropriate that I responded in the same manner.

"Oh yes, lets," I answered with a gentlemanly smile, right before both of us began yelling at the top of our lungs as we turned and dashed across the distance between us and the alleyway, swinging our arms out wildly as we tried to gain as much speed as possible before the two armies would smash into us!

We ran as fast as our legs could carry us, but we were already huffing and puffing from the exertion we had put ourselves through after running away from the first army. We just weren't fast enough, and soon a wall of C-Sec and soldiers ran in front of the alley entrance, blocking our path as they all lined up with rifles and pistols pointed at our faces.

"Whooaaa! Okay, not good!" I said quickly as both Alec and I came to a jarring stop at the sight of the many barrels now being pointed at us. Immediately I raised my Phalanx, Alec drawing out Jango's second blaster as the two of us sharply pressed ourselves back to back, spinning around in an awkward circle as we scanned the large mass of shouting armed people. The two armies had now reached each other, both of them joining up and surrounding us in a massive circle of bodies, all of the agents and soldiers within the inner ring closest to us charging their weapons to full power and training them on us.

Now instead of _Pirates of the Caribbean_, I felt like we were in the middle of that scene from _The Lord of the Rings_, when Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowship had been surrounded by a horde of bloodthirsty goblins while travelling through the Mines of Moria!

Alec and I kept our backs tightly pressed against one another, our weapons still held out before us as we continued spinning in a circle, both he and I frantically looking around at the hundreds and hundreds of people surrounding us, desperate to find a way of escape.

Suddenly the searchlights of the patrol cars blinded us again as they fixed their beams down on the area. The whine of the cars' engines could be heard clearly over the shouting of the combined army as Bailey and his four other vehicles came to a dead hover over top of us.

As that was happening, four more searchlight beams flashed into existence, emanating from an equal number of additional patrol cars that had flown over the still thickening ring of people.

"Oh look! Echo 2's back!" Alec shouted over his shoulder as he briefly raised the barrel of one of his pistols up to the sky. Sure enough seconds after the four new cars came to their own dead hover above us, a mechanical humming sound mixed in with the surrounding noises as a large Mantis gunship blasted up behind them.

Squinting past the blinding beams of light shining on us, I could make out several dent marks in the Mantis's hull along with many splintered tree branches sticking out of its wings, confirming that this ship was in fact the same one we had fought with back in the Presidium park.

I winced in pain as Echo 2 shone its own searchlight down on us, burning my eyes slightly as I brought my attention back to aiming my Phalanx at the encircling army.

_"This is Citadel Security, you are completely surrounded and cut off, surrender yourselves and your arrests will be as painless as possible,"_ the voice of the Salarian officer boomed out over his loudspeaker. Both of us remained silent and frozen in place, weighing our options in our minds.

"I got nothing over here, any ideas?" I whispered back to Alec without taking my eyes away from the sight on my pistol.

"No, but I will let you in on a little secret Axel...I _really_ hate caged spaces," Alec responded bitterly, almost venomously, in the same manner he had spoken when he had been forced to reflect on his own personal memories from centuries ago.

"Yeah so do I, maybe we should have thought this out a bit better before becoming hardened criminals," I stated without noticing this.

There was a short pause before Alec quickly slid both of Jango's pistols back under his belt, suddenly turning around to face my backside with a look of anger.

"YEAH?! Well I'm not the one who resisted arrest in the first place!" the Guardian shouted at the back of my head. I frowned in pure confusion at his sudden outburst, lowering my weapon as I turned around to face him myself.

But to my surprise Alec was grinning behind his mask of anger, his right eye giving me a small wink as he jerked his head repeatedly over to the side to indicate the army. At first I didn't get what he was trying to imply, my frown only deepening even more as I shook my head. After seeing that I wasn't understanding his message, Alec rolled his eyes while blowing out an exasperated breath. Slightly lifting a hand so that the surrounding army would barely notice, the Guardian used a finger to indicate the two of us, then used his other hand to slam his fist into the palm of his first hand, before jabbing a thumb at himself and then another behind him to indicate the soldiers and agents barring our path into the alleyway.

Suddenly it all clicked for me. Alec wanted us to fight and make a scene, which would then force some of the agents to intervene and possibly give us a better chance of fighting through and escaping!

"Uhhh...No, you're just the one who announced us as TERRORISTS to the entire station! And then had the brains to go and knock down one of those things!" I shouted back at him as I jabbed a finger up at Echo 2, being sure to make my voice boom as dramatically loud as possible so as to catch the attention of every person within ear-shot. Alec was smirking slightly as he went back into his role.  
"I'm not the one who destroyed a public elevator that nearly crushed dozens of innocent people!" he shouted, taking a step toward me and drawing himself up to his full height, which completely failed at being intimidating since his body was an exact copy of mine, therefore making him not a single inch taller than me. (Ah the disadvantages of being a doppelganger...)

"You're the one who threw the detonator out the doorway, so technically you _did_ destroy that elevator and nearly crushed dozens of innocent people!" I shouted back as I clipped my pistol to my belt and shoved Alec backwards with the palm of my other hand.

In response Alec lunged forward and pressed his forehead against mine; baring his teeth and growling like a wolverine.  
"Oh yeah?" he hissed as he pressed a bit farther forward, which made me press my forehead back in retaliation, the both of us using our heads to fight against the other like two male deer stuck in an antler lock.

"Yeah!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

"YE...you know what, screw this!" I said finally after the two of us had been pressing each other back and forth. Without warning I wrapped an arm around the back of the Guardian's neck and sent a light knee strike into his abdomen, allowing me to pull him into a tight headlock!

Most of the army around us lowered their weapons slightly and looked at each other in confusion.

After a quick wrestling match in which Alec was able to break free of my vice-grip, the two of us ended up grabbing each other by the hands and shoving the other back. Finally it came to a stand still with both of us glaring at each other while at the same time trying not to break out in a fit of laughter at our antics.  
"Oww. That actually hurt," Alec whispered to me with a slight cringe as he rotated his neck.  
"Just playing the part Alec," I whispered back.

"Hey! Break it up!" one of the C-Sec agents closest to the alleyway shouted to us. A deep humming sound soon followed his words, emanating from around the ring of people. My eyes quickly widened as I noticed several hundred little blue dots appear across mine and Alec's bodies. Looking all around us, we could see nearly every agent and soldier within range aiming their weapons with activated laser-sights trained on us!

"Was this in the plan?" I asked openly as we both froze in place. Right away a single shot was fired at us, its thermal round impacting into the ground next to our feet. "No..." Alec answered with a shake of his head.  
"Break it up NOW!" the first C-Sec agent shouted again.  
"Sorry!" both Alec and I apologized in unison as we pulled apart and turned toward the agent with our hands raised.  
"You got any other bright ideas?" I asked over to the Guardian out of the corner of my mouth, my eyes looking at each of the laser-sights being painted across our bodies. "I'm fresh out mate," Alec said with a sigh as he gave another shake of his head.  
"Maybe surrendering wouldn't be so bad after all."

There was a short silence before Alec suddenly frowned and glanced up toward the higher areas of the huge mass of wall in front of us, having noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Immediately his said eyes widened as he recognized what he was looking at.

"Actually, I think I do have one more thing up my sleeve...or rather, someone else's sleeve," the Guardian whispered forebodingly. I frowned as I looked over at him, his last words catching me off guard. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Get down," he ordered to me quickly.

"What?" I asked suddenly. Without a word Alec placed a hand on top of my head and sharply spun it up to allow me to see the thing that he had noticed just a second ago. Right away I stiffened in apprehension as I saw it too.

Clinging high above us against the purple metal of the wall was a barely noticeable air distortion, an outline that shimmered slightly against its surroundings, letting light pass through and allowing me to see the rest of the walling behind it.

Squinting carefully, I traced the outline with my eyes to get an exact picture of what its full form was. From what I could make out, it was big, with two long arms and legs, along with a large wide-browed head.

"That's not who I think it is, is it?!" I asked quickly as I used one of my raised hands to indicate the distortion. Suddenly three deep red laser beams shone out from it, reaching out across the entire diameter of the ringed army as its triangle arranged dots appeared across the hull of Lieutenant Bailey's patrol car!

"Like I said, GET DOWN!" Alec shouted as he grabbed my shoulder and shoved me forward, both of us diving onto our stomachs and throwing our arms over our heads milliseconds before a loud electrical discharge screamed out around us, immediately accompanied by a bright flash of blue-white light!

* * *

Sweat rolled down through the scales of his reptilian-like skin, adrenaline and euphoria flowing through his veins as he pushed his muscles to the absolute maximum limits of performance. The Hunter was running, running faster than some of the swiftest animals of Earth, even running faster than he'd ever been capable of back when he'd been a young cub of only fifty years old.

Moving with the grace and agility of a jungle animal, the Predator had been able to easily escape the ensuing lockdown that had fallen over the entire Market District, running from platform to platform, dodging around corners and leaping across great distances.

The Hunter had heard reports coming from the radios of scrambling C-Sec agents that he was able to stealthily maneuver around, quickly learning of the high speed battle going on between the enormous Ray gunship and Axel's stolen hover car. Listening closely from the shadows, he had also learned of the destination that Axel and his companions seemed to be fleeing to.

_"Targets' trajectory appears to be taking them to the Military Docks near the Embassy District! They must be attempting to steal a ship in order to make their escape!"_ a garbled voice had shouted out from one of the nearby agents' radios.

With this new information in mind, the Hunter had immediately keyed a command into his left gauntlet, activating his invisibility camouflage before setting off at an incredible sprint.

Now almost twenty minutes later, the Yautja was nearing his destination, having crossed a massive portion of the Presidium Ring on foot alone!

Although unfortunately he was also quickly learning that he was running out of time.

Having stolen a C-Sec ear-piece from an unfortunate agent that he had slammed into during his trek, he found out that lieutenants Bailey and Chellick had organized an extensive search of the Docks in order to locate the missing terrorists, and judging by the shouting and harsh orders now spewing out from the device's speaker, they had succeeded!

Now it was a race against the clock, the Hunter had to get to Axel before C-Sec could apprehend him!

Jumping and vaulting over obstacles, running down walkways or simply barreling through civilians and C-Sec un-lucky enough to be in his way, he used every skill at his disposal to shorten the time it would take for him to reach Axel's location.

After moving like this for a short time, the Predator came to the railed edge of a walkway that overlooked a long platform stretching out below him. This platform was being used as a sort of waiting room area for military officers and personnel getting ready to board their designated war-ships.

Farther up ahead of the dozens of rows of spartan seats spaced across the platform was a large entrance checkpoint that separated the actual Docks from the rest of the area, sealed off by a glass door and a walkthrough of several sections of laser scanners and other security precautions.

The Predator barely hesitated as he continued running, using every last reserve of strength to launch himself over this guard-railing, his enhanced Yautja power and agility allowing him to jump high and far through the air.

People who were sitting patiently throughout the waiting area immediately shouted or flinched in fright as a large shallow crater suddenly cracked into existence as the Hunter slammed down in a crouch with his right fist planted in front of himself, his active camouflage allowing the surrounding people to see his outlined air distortion.

Breathing heavily as he stood up to his full height, the Hunter activated his tri-lasers, causing the red targeting triangle in his mask computer to flash several times as it zoomed in on the large glass door ahead of him.

After acquiring a confirmed target-lock, his now repaired Plasma Caster rose up from its shoulder cradle and fired a bright blue blast of energy.

Many officers and guards hit the deck as the blast shot forward, passing through the many laser scanners set up in front of the checkpoint before impacting against the glass door, sending out a brief fiery explosion mixed with shards of glass and debris.

The Predator's active camouflage had now started to fluctuate from the massive power drain the Caster required, periodically revealing sections of his body for brief moments. Before the guards and officers could fully recover, the partially visible Hunter lurched forward into another sprint, dashing down the aisles of seats toward the smoking checkpoint as several Salarian and Turian guards jumped up from the floor to intercept him.

"Stop that thing!" one of the Salarians shouted as they ran at him. But the Hunter only viciously swept out his arm as the two ran within reach of each other, catching the man in the jaw and sending him spinning to the ground.

This was followed by a Turian agent springing forward, only to be instantly clotheslined by the Predator's outstretched arm. As that guard fell sprawled on his back, two Human guards leapt into the Hunter's path just a mere few feet from the beginning of the checkpoint's laser scanners, both of them ripping modified pistols from their leg holsters.

But the Yautja was on them in a flash, sprinting forward and grabbing both of their necks in his mighty taloned hands, simultaneously lifting the men three feet off the ground before either of them could even activate their weapons. With a low growl of effort he drew his arms back and hurled both the Humans forward, sending them smashing through what was left of the glass door, further opening it up for the Hunter as he ran through the now squawking security scanners and leapt over their cringing bodies.

After running farther away from the checkpoint, the Hunter quickly came to a stop and looked around at the many Council war-ships docked down the mile long stretch of platform, scanning across several of the docking piers that he'd already ran past in an attempt to find where Bailey and his search-parties might be, and more importantly where Axel and the Shapeshifter Alec were reported to be through the ear-piece.

Klaxon alarms were already blaring out across the area thanks to the scanners the Predator had set off just a moment ago, causing dozens of security patrols and on-duty ship guards to begin storming out into view towards him, several of them even firing off shots in his direction.

Quickly typing the restore power command into his gauntlet, the black eyes of the Predator's mask flashed orange for a moment as his cloaking system re-engaged, allowing him to disappear and easily dodge the weapons fire being thrown at him as he turned and sprinted towards the railed edge of the docking platform that stretched in-between two empty piers.

Because of his rapid movement however, several of the pursuing guards were able to notice the moving air distortion of the cloaking device and keep up their chase, one of them even managing to send a shot whizzing over the Yautja's shoulder.

Keeping his eyes focused ahead on the quickly approaching edge, the Predator activated the small grappling hook built into his right gauntlet, which allowed him to grab onto the serrated dart like hook itself as it extended and pull out several feet of the silver specially constructed cord attached to it.

Just as he came within arm's reach of the railing, he harshly attached the dart-hook to it and springboared himself off into the air, launching into a haphazard Swan Dive!

The wind whistled in his ears as he dove through the air, allowing the cord to extend even further behind him as he fell toward another stretch of Docking platform a few hundred feet below. The cord suddenly became taut, allowing him to spin around and swing below the underbelly of the platform he had just jumped from.

As he swung up, he saw many triangular support structures and miniature platforms placed all along the underbelly, used for keeping the Docks and the piers that were connected to them firmly attached to the rest of the District. Luckily one of these support structures was placed right in front of him, and as he continued to swing he reached out his free hand to latch on to it.

But then suddenly the cord slackened!

The Hunter's eyes widened as he found that he was now falling away from the support structure, the talons on his left hand scratching into the metal in a desperate attempt to find purchase. Those fool security guards must have somehow been able to pry the grappling hook off of the railing and throw it down, hoping that he would simply plummet to his death!

Slamming the bottom of his fist onto a button on his gauntlet, he immediately retracted the grappling cord back into its launching mechanism, allowing him to quickly aim his right arm and fire as he continued to fall backwards.

The dart-hook blasted back up toward the support structure, stabbing through the metal and latching on. The Predator jerked to a stop in mid air as the line became taut again, causing him to swing forward uncontrollably like a giant pendulum into several of the miniature platforms sticking out near the structure!

In a great crash of metal and breaking machinery, the Hunter slammed up into one of the higher platforms, remaining in the air for a brief second before coming to a hard landing on his back on another platform farther below him as gravity once again took control of his body.

Breathing deeply through the pain wracking his limbs, the Hunter relaxed his muscles as he pressed another button on his gauntlet, which made the dart-hook detach from the support structure over-top of him and retract back into his gauntlet.

Suddenly however, as the Hunter slowly began to sit up, the small platform gave a brief metallic groan before snapping apart under his weight!

Letting out a high growl that could have been interpreted as a yell, the Predator swung his arms out frantically in an attempt to grab onto something, falling backward from the platform as he and it began crashing down through the other platforms and machinery underneath them!

Smashing through platform after platform, machine to machine, breaking through structure after structure, the Predator grunted and cringed in pain with each successive crash as he fell farther and farther down toward the lower level of the Docks!

He felt like he was in a giant Pin-Ball machine, bouncing from each section to section that he smashed into, flipping end over end in multiply erratic ways!

After a few more seconds of this crash course of a journey, the Predator tumbled down into a thick net of cables and wires set up underneath the last of the support structures. His large frame slammed into and broke through them, which in turn caused millions of arcing tendrils of electricity to fire out in random directions, many of them striking against the Predator himself. Roaring out in pain as the electrical currents raced across his skin and overloaded his camouflage technology, the now completely visible Hunter lunged out a hand and latched on to one of the nearby cables, cutting it in half with a quick swipe of his wrist blades.

Holding on tightly, he swung un-controllably out of the hissing sparking nest of wiring, twirling in small circles as he fell down low towards the second stretch of the Docks, the fixtures keeping the cable attached to the higher structures jarring loose and falling apart under his heavy bulk.

Grunting and cringing with increasing anger as he continued to slam against the purple mass of walling that stretched out along the Docks, the Yautja quickly pulled up his left leg and retrieved his 20 inch serrated dagger from the sheath attached to the side of his armoured shin.

With one swipe of his powerful arm the Predator stabbed the dagger into the purple hull, driving in the hardened blade all the way up to the hilt as he let go of the sparking cable, jerking to a stop and briefly swinging back and forth on the handle grip.

A numb pain was flaring up in the Hunter's right shoulder, the same shoulder that one of the Great Serpents had bitten into back in the Market Corridor. Growling lowly in annoyance, he brought up his left hand and lightly massaged his aching muscle, his scarred fingers brushing over the deep tooth marks his enemy had left in him during their battle.

But suddenly as the Predator began to still his rapidly beating heart, five speeding vehicles flashed past his position, followed by a huge blast of wind slamming him flat against the wall!

Shaking his head to clear the fogginess of this sudden ordeal, the Hunter looked ahead after the rapidly shrinking crafts to see what exactly had just nearly killed him.

Narrowing his eyes, the Predator flashed his mask vision forward by several frames, the red targeting triangle panning across and identifying four C-Sec patrol cars, which were followed closely behind by a large and slightly damaged A-61 Mantis gunship. After further advancing his vision by several more frames, the Predator was amused to see that this gunship was in fact Echo 2, covered in dent marks and wood chippings after the embarrassing incident in the Presidium park.

But within a second the Hunter's amusement disappeared. Zooming in his vision by two more frames, he could see that Echo 2 and its four escorting cars had come to a dead hover, each of them flashing a strong search-light down onto an enormous crowd of shouting people, all of which were fully armed and armoured.

Taking a moment to scan the crowd, the Hunter identified over a hundred C-Sec agents mixed in with the hundreds of Turian and Human soldiers that most likely belonged to the line of war-ships docked nearby.

It was at that moment that the Hunter's eyes widened and his head jerked forward with a start. Enhancing his vision to its maximum magnification, he quickly found what was at the heart of this massive ring of people, the very thing that had brought both he and Echo 2 all the way from the Market District.

It was Axel and Alec!

At the moment both the Human and the Shapeshifter were standing back to back, spinning in a circle with weapons pointed at the enraged army that surrounded them. The only means of escape that seemed to be even remotely possible to the Predator's eye was what appeared to be the entrance of an alleyway that bore into the metal of the wall mass. But at the moment it was blocked off by an entire wall of agents and soldiers.

The Hunter needed Axel alive and free, otherwise the possibilities of him returning to his own galaxy and the rest of the Yautja, of returning to his home, might as well be non-existent. The only way Axel and his friend were going to get out of this predicament was with the help of an outside source, and so far the Predator was the only outside source capable of helping them at the moment!

That and the fact that honour demanded he retrieve his stolen Combi-Stick, which the Shapeshifter had been so foolish to take from him.

Gripping the handle of the dagger with his left hand, the Hunter allowed his right to drop and quickly begin tapping a sequence of codes into the controls on his left gauntlet. The electricity that had attacked him earlier after smashing through that net of cables had shorted out his active camouflage, but hopefully it hadn't fried it. If he could just re-route enough power he would be able to force the camo to re-engage.

As he imputed the codes, his body began to flicker and disappear, but then reappear sporadically, as if having trouble adjusting to the newly routed power. After a few seconds of tinkering the Predator let out a growl of frustration, smacking his fist against the gauntlet in order to make it work properly.

Amazingly the Hunter's body vanished the moment after he did that, his masked eyes flashing orange as he disappeared from view.

Now holding onto the handle with both hands, the Predator brought his legs up and pressed his feet against the wall mass, taking a moment to collect all his strength. Then with a tremendous burst of both strength and speed, the Hunter swung himself to the side, kicking his body along the wall and then running across its smooth face for a brief three seconds.

In that time he was able to rip the entire blade of his dagger out from the wall, holding it near his chest as he poured every ounce of power into his legs to keep as much friction between the pads on the bottom of his feet and the wall itself as possible.

This tactic allowed him to literally run across the face of the wall! (Insert Mission Impossible music!)

Even though it was only able to last for three seconds, because of the natural length of the Predator's legs and his stride, coupled with his heightened Yautja abilities, he was able to cover as many as fifteen meters in that short time before needing to swipe his arm out and stab his dagger back into the wall to keep from falling down to the platform fifty feet below.

Although a fall from this height wouldn't kill a creature like him, the Hunter had a feeling that he would need the advantage of the high ground for the on-coming confrontation.

Repeating this three step move of swing-run-stab as fast and often as he could, it took only about thirty seconds before the invisible Hunter had managed to stab himself into a position high above the ringed army of soldiers and agents, while also placing himself parallel and level with Echo 2 and its entourage of patrol cars.

Keeping his legs raised and pressed against the wall at the ready, the Predator let his left hand drop from his dagger handle, allowing him to easily twist his body to the left so that he would have a better view of what was going on, and also so that his Plasma Caster would have a clearer shot.

Looking down into the center of the ringed army, he didn't need to enhance his vision to see that Axel and Alec were now standing side by side, both with their hands raised and hundreds of tiny blue dots patterned across their bodies, each coming from a small laser sight fixed to the barrel of any weapon that had a clear line of fire on them.

Lifting his head up, he did enhance his vision this time by several frames as he scanned the five additional patrol cars that he hadn't been able to see from his previous position. Focusing in on the car hovering in the middle of the five, the Hunter took a bio-scan of the three occupants sitting inside, quickly recognizing Lieutenants Bailey and Chellick arguing with a Salarian officer whom he didn't know or care to know.

Flicking to a different vision setting in his mask, the Predator was able to see through the car's body structure and scan the inner makings of its large engine, his red targeting triangle locking on to the main power source.

After the triangle began to pulse red and yellow, the Hunter activated his tri-laser system, sending out his own deep red laser-sights that acquired Bailey's car as his primary target.

"Like I said, GET DOWN!" the Predator heard Alec shout to Axel from below as they both threw themselves onto their stomachs, obviously having noticed either his lasers or his cloaking field. It made no difference now.

The Plasma Caster immediately rose up from its shoulder cradle and fired!

The blue blast of plasma shot over the army in a flash, striking into Bailey's car in an explosion of sparks and flame, destroying the inner makings of its engine and causing the vehicle to begin spinning un-controllably down toward the ground!

Instantly flicking the targeting triangle to the rest of the hovering patrol cars, the Predator fired four more successive blasts that resulted in the exact same effect, sending each vehicle careering to the docking platform spewing black smoke from their destroyed components.

Many of the hundreds of soldiers and agents that had been standing underneath the five cars shouted out in surprise, some ducking their heads while all of them scattered out of the way as the cars began smashing down onto the platform one after the other.

As most of the people on that side of the ringed army crisscrossed in random directions to get out from under the falling chasses, the men and women on the other half all raised their weapons up toward the Hunter's position, the discharges from his Caster having made him visible once again!

"Contact right!" one of the soldiers shouted as all of them trained their laser-sights on the Hunter's flickering body. The other four patrol cars and Echo 2 had now begun to reposition in order to confront him as well, presenting a unique opportunity for him to further disrupt C-Sec's pursuit of Axel.

Just as every person with a bead on him pulled their triggers, the Hunter kicked himself away from the wall, soaring over the barrage of thermal rounds as he launched himself into an arcing backflip. Slamming down feet first onto the roof of the closest hovering patrol car, he turned around and leapt across the mid-air gap between this car and another one just behind it, springboarding himself off of the hood of this second car before smashing against the cockpit of the Mantis, sinking his dagger through its jet-black hull and latching on!

"What happened?!" the Predator heard one of the pilots shout from behind the tinted canopy.

"That thing just latched onto the side of the ship!" the second answered as Echo 2 began jerking from side to side, the main pilot obviously trying to shake the Hunter off. Digging the heels of his feet into the hull while keeping his left hand gripped around the dagger handle, the Predator drew back his free hand into a fist and slammed a powerful punch straight into the center of the canopy, shattering the glass and creating a large hole as he drove his entire arm through into the cockpit itself!

The Turian pilot sitting at the foremost control console yelled as the Hunter's fist drove in near his head, causing the man to begin wrenching at his holstered pistol in a desperate attempt to draw and shoot at the menacing alien mask that peered in at him.

Quickly the Predator threw in another punch, catching the pilot in his temple and knocking him out, causing his body to slump to the side away from the Mantis controls. Before the second pilot sitting farther back in the cockpit could draw his own pistol, the Hunter extended his wrist blades and stabbed them into the main console, sharply rotating his forearm so as to cause as much damage as possible.

Sparks, smoke, and arcs of electricity erupted from the damaged components, causing several alarms to go off through the cockpit as the gunship's systems began to go haywire!

Suddenly the Predator found himself having to cling to the ship's hull with all his strength as the Mantis began to spin in erratic circles!

Smoke began to pour out of the gunship's repulsors as they started to discharge sporadically, the wings and tail that extended out from the ship's main body slamming into the sides of some of the patrol cars still hovering around it.

As these cars also fell from the sky, causing the rest of the ringed army to scatter and dive out of the way as they crashed down onto the Docks, Echo 2's main cannon suddenly glowed orange and began firing out a continuous burst of thermal rounds across the immediate area, spraying them out in a reckless ring of fire as the ship kept spinning in circles, sending the rounds whizzing over top of everyone's heads while most of the army dived to the ground!

And then it only got worse!

Within seconds of this starting, the rocket-launchers attached to the top of the ship suddenly activated and began firing out the Mantis's payload of missiles!

Everyone ducked, dived, or ran for whatever cover they could find as explosions of fire and smoke began to erupt all around them. Several of the missiles even struck into the bows of the docked war-ships nearby, sending scores of debris blasting out across the area as the enormous Alliance and Turian Heavy-Cruisers took the full brunt of the assault!

* * *

Both of us cringed as Echo 2's cannon screamed out overhead, accompanied by the explosions from its missiles as each one impacted against the wall mass or into the platform around us, blasting up huge craters mixed with metal shards and smoke.

The ringed army had now been thrown into complete disarray, with C-Sec agents and ship soldiers shouting and scattering across the Docks in every direction to avoid getting hit by the Mantis's rain of fire.

Lifting my head up to look over at Alec, I sharply pulled out the compact Predator Combi-Stick jutting from underneath his belt and shoved it into his hands.

"Give this thing back to it before it kills somebody!" I shouted in his face to be heard over the chaotic noises that screamed around us, jabbing a finger up at the spiraling gunship that still had the Yautja clinging to the side of its cockpit.

Quickly jumping up to his feet, Alec began waving the spear frantically above his head to try and draw the attention of the Predator.

"Here it is! Take it! TAKE IT BACK!" the Guardian screamed up to the Hunter, jumping up and down as he did. But almost immediately after he began doing so, the Mantis began to lose altitude, spinning farther and farther toward the edge of the stretch of platform before falling through the air, disappearing from sight as it dropped down toward the apartment complexes far below!

As the Predator disappeared along with the out-of-control gunship, Alec returned the Combi-Stick to the belt on his back and turned to me with a shrug.

"Oh well, I tried," he said nonchalantly.

"Yeah never mind, lets get out of here!" I said as I sprang up from the ground, the un-injured members of the army having already begun to re-organize themselves. Both he and I made a quick sprint for the now un-guarded alleyway in front of us.

However, we had only gotten a few steps within the alley when a blue thermal round flashed in front of us just inches away from my face. Coming to a jarring stop that sent Alec crashing into my backside, both of us spun around toward the direction it had come from.

Sure enough, quickly approaching through the rolling wisps of smoke coming from the missile craters and damaged hulks of patrol cars that lay scattered across the area, were the three armed and soot covered forms of Bailey, Chellick, and the Salarian officer!

The officer snarled as he pulled the trigger on his raised Striker pistol, shooting a round directly at my face. I gave a sneer of contempt as my shields flared and deflected the round, allowing me to draw my Phalanx pistol and input a code that set the weapon's concussive rounds to maximum power.

"This is getting old…" I muttered as I snapped my arm up and fired three glowing white rounds at the officer's torso.

The Salarian yelled out in pain as his body jerked backwards, two of the non-lethal rounds impacting into each shoulder while the third slammed into his stomach. As he tumbled to the ground, Bailey dove in and caught him before he could hit the floor, followed soon by Chellick as the Turian dashed in front of them, standing between me and the officers with his own pistol raised.

Chellick and I stared hard at each other, his brilliant green eyes drilling into my light blue ones. Using my thumb I flicked the small switch built into the side of my gun, causing its piercing blue laser sight to materialize across the space in between us and target the center of the Turian's chest.

But before I could pull the trigger, Alec suddenly grabbed my forearm and forced me to lower the Phalanx.

"Maybe now isn't the time," he said after jerking his head over to the side, indicating something off to our left. Taking my eyes off Chellick for a moment, I quickly saw that he was right.

All around us we could see the dark forms of C-Sec agents and Dock Soldiers advancing through the smoke toward our position, sweeping their weapons in front of themselves as they searched for us.

"You may be right about that," I said with a nod as I de-activated the laser sight before both of us immediately turned and bolted further into the alleyway. Un-surprisingly we had to duck our heads down low as Chellick began firing rounds in an attempt to stop us, overheating his weapon a second before we disappeared from sight.

"Haxon, where does this alley lead to?" I asked as the two of us continued running down the alleyway, passing by many low blue lights that were illuminating the path ahead of us. Far out in front of us was a sharp left turn leading further down the corridor, nearing closer and closer as we ran faster toward it. Several seconds went by without Haxon giving an answer to my question, making me frown in suspicion.  
"Haxon?" I pressed.  
_"This was a mistake…"_ he finally uttered.  
"What?" I asked with a start, an un-easy feeling starting to form in my gut.

"_We shouldn't have come this way." _

"What are you talking about, what's down here?" I asked as both Alec and I dashed around the on-coming corner.

Right away we halted in our tracks as I got my answer.

"Oh, that is _bullshit_," Alec stated with finality as he jabbed a finger ahead of us. "That _is_ bullshit! Haxon why am I looking at this?!" I barked to the A.I., pressing two fingers against the side of my ear.

Directly in front of us was a large silver wall spanning across the entire width and height of the corridor. The alleyway had sent us right into a dead end!

_"During the chaos the Predator was able to inflict, I wasn't able to properly analyze where exactly this alley led to. By the time I had found out about this dead end, we were already half-way to the turn you just passed around."_

"While that's all very relieving to hear _how_ we screwed up, I'd like to hear more about how we're going to get out of here!" Alec shouted over to me as he drew one of Jango's blasters and trained it on the corner behind us; the sounds of stomping boots and barking orders soon beginning to echo down the alley as C-Sec began mobilizing in pursuit of us.

However, I was still frowning in confusion as I walked up closer to the wall and placed the palm of my gloved hand against it.

"This doesn't make sense. Why would there be an alleyway in the middle of a military zone that simply led to nowhere?" I asked to both myself and anyone else who were listening.

_"Actually it doesn't just lead to a dead end, there is a door that opens into a large storage warehouse just off to your right,"_ Haxon corrected.

Turning around toward the equally silver stretch of wall on my right, I was surprised to see an average sized rectangular door built into the metal farther behind me, fully sealed and locked with a glowing red touch-pad set up next to it.  
Quickly crossing over to it, I tapped the pad and flicked it to green, causing the door to give a brief hiss as it retracted and slid apart in opposite directions.

"If this leads to a warehouse why don't we just go in and slip through the back-door?" Alec threw over, anxiously flicking his head back and forth between the corner and me, his hand gripping the handle of his blaster tighter and tighter as the marching sounds from the C-Sec agents continued to come closer.

"_Unfortunately there is no back-door, and the walls are reinforced with Palladium plating, meaning we won't be able to blast our way through like we did back in_ _Irwin's store."_

Peering into the massive but sparsely lit warehouse, I could make out huge purple containers and pieces of equipment stacked over top of each other in the dim yellow lighting, all of them placed upon rows and rows of metal shelves set up across the entire length of the room.

"What's being stored in here?" I asked the A.I. as I briefly threw a glance over my shoulder toward the corner.

"_Building materials for Council War-ships mostly, along with hundreds of machines, instruments, and system components used for controlling the ships themselves. The contents of the containers you're looking at could range anywhere from hull plating, to weapons, or even to back-up thruster systems."_

"Sounds like we'd have everything we'd need to build an entire ship from scratch…" I muttered as I squinted to get a better look at what was farther down toward the back of the warehouse.

"_We _would_ in fact, but as you can imagine it would take us weeks just to assemble something that could fly for only a short time, months more likely if we wanted the flight to be sustained longer,"_ Haxon stated somewhat glumly.

"_Or_, we could just call in some really tech savvy specialists to build us a machine that could get us out of here within the next ten minutes," Alec joked over to me with a grin.  
_"Judging from the short time remaining before C-Sec storms around that corner and arrests us, the possibility of that outcome is a billion to one," _the A.I. informed us.

I gave a pathetic laugh as I turned around to the corner and raised my Phalanx, ready for the final confrontation before we would be swarmed by agents and sent to jail.  
"One can always hope for those kinds of outcomes once in a while…"

Suddenly, barely a second after I had said that, the ring lit up bright silver!

Shining through the small holes that had been burnt through the leather of my gloved ring finger the last time I had nearly been consumed by the Rage, the light caused both Alec and I to snap our heads toward my hand in alarm.  
_"Incredible…"_ Haxon awed as he scanned the massive power fluctuations emanating from the ring using the sensors built into my suit.

Behind both of us, a huge gust of wind billowed around the area as an enormous glowing white portal sparked into existence, blinding us with its light as it rapidly expanded out in front of the dead end wall!

Alec and I threw up our free hands in front of our faces to shield our eyes from the blinding glare, remaining that way for several seconds before the light decreased in radiance.

"So, who did we call this time?" Alec asked out loud as we both stared at the swirling white vortex with confused expressions.

Suddenly the portal rippled as a large silver-gray object flew through it, landing in front of us spread out on four sharp thin legs. The object looked like a large metal spider of some kind, its entire body nearly a quarter the size of my torso and composed of hundreds of tiny advanced interconnecting blocks all linked together.

My eyes widened as I recognized what this new creature was.

"Axel, forgive me for my bluntness, but did you just summon a _Replicator_ to this galaxy?!" Alec nearly barked at me as he too recognized the look of the mechanical insect that was now bobbing its body back and forth as it looked between the two of us, scanning our bodies within the purple and white pixeled vision that allowed it to see.

I spun to the side and jabbed a finger over at the Guardian.  
"Hey, you're the one who said we needed a tech-expert!" I stated quickly in my defense.  
"_You're_ the one who didn't focus properly on that," Alec shot back as he jabbed his own finger down at the still glowing ring on my hand.  
"And when I said tech expert, I wasn't meaning that we call in the very creature the Asgard said was a worse enemy than the Goa'uld!" he added in, making reference to the moment in the TV show _Stargate SG-1_ when the Asgard alien known as Thor introduced the Replicators using those same words.

A loud mechanical clinking sound caused both of us to snap our attention back to the Replicator, which had taken a few tentative steps toward us.

Right away Alec brought up his blaster and aimed it straight at the spider's body.

"Wait don't! They only attack if they perceive you as hostile," I said quickly as I shot out a hand and swatted the barrel of the pistol back down. There was a moment of tense silence as we carefully watched the Replicator, waiting to see if it had taken Alec's aggressive movement as offensive.

Suddenly the still active portal rippled again, this time spitting out four more Replicators from its glowing surface!

As these new additions slammed down onto the polished metal floor of the alleyway, they moved to flank the original spider with two on each side.  
"You're sure about that?" Alec asked over to me, grasping the handle of his pistol with both hands this time.

The lead Replicator looked up at me for a brief second before lunging forward and letting out a raspy mechanical hiss, flaring the jagged wing-like flaps on its back before it and its four brethren began quickly scurrying toward us!

As the sharp points on the tips of their legs stabbed into the floor, and the loud mechanical noises of their movements began to mix in with the chorus of boot-falls still coming from the C-Sec agents charging closer just around the corner, dozens of more Replicators began to jump out through the portal, all of them landing harshly on the floor before advancing behind the ranks of their siblings.

"No, not really," I answered after a pause, followed soon by both of us raising our weapons and opening fire!

The first round I fired shot straight into the lead Replicator's right front leg, blasting off half of the limb at the creature's 'knee' joint.  
As the original Replicator slumped forward from this handicapping injury, it was quickly buried and enveloped by the growing tidal wave of its siblings, which were now pouring out of the portal by the hundreds in a massive rush!

Larger Replicators in the forms of giant beetles were now beginning to join with the moving horde of insects, while hundreds upon hundreds of the smaller spider forms were starting to exit through the portal already crawling across the walls of the alleyway, some of them even moving up overtop of us toward the ceiling.

Both of us continued firing our weapons, backing up several steps as the overflowing river of silver-gray insects came closer toward us.

"Axel, I've got a problem here!" Alec shouted to me over the Phalanx and blaster fire.  
Jerking my head in his direction, I caught sight of him firing both blasters in quick bursts, having already drawn his second one and gone fully-automatic. As I watched him fight for a moment I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong, that was until I followed the path of the blasts and clued in immediately once I saw it.

Jango's blasters weren't having any effect!

As each explosive red blast slammed into a different Replicator, the machines would simply stagger backwards for a second as if stunned before shrugging the effects off and advancing forward again along with the rest of the horde.

"They're immune to energy based weapons, we need projectiles!" I shouted back to him as I kept firing rounds from my pistol.

Although, I wasn't faring much better then Alec.  
Since the Phalanx utilized mass-effect fields and other energy drawing components, the semi-solid thermal rounds that I was blasting into each Replicator that came near me were only managing to inflict partial damage, shooting off limbs or sinking holes through their bodies, but not delivering the one shot kill-shots that I had seen most modern weapons from my world inflict during the battles between these creatures and the teams of the SGC.

After shooting the wing flap off the back of another Replicator, I heard Alec shout in pain as his blaster firing ceased. Spinning around, I saw him hopping up and down on one leg while frantically shaking his other back and forth in an attempt to throw off one of the spider forms that had managed to sink all four of its sharp legs into his shin!

"Get offa' me!" the Guardian shouted angrily as he pointed one of his blasters at it and fired at point blank range, sending the undamaged machine shooting off of his leg and crashing amidst its scurrying maw of duplicates.

While that one crashed farther back, one of the larger beetle Replicators hissed angrily as it dashed head-on for Alec, flaring its large curved wings as it sprang up into the air, intent on landing on top of his head.

Alec quickly dropped his two pistols and ripped out the Predator Combi-Stick from behind his back, flicking the small button on its side and activating the weapon into its six-foot long spear form.  
Baring his teeth, he held the spear horizontally across his chest with both hands just as the beetle Replicator flew within striking distance.

"Alright then, BATTER UP!" Alec roared as he viciously swiped one end of the spear forward, slamming the serrated diamond-head tip into the large insect's 'face', causing its purple-white vision to wink out into erratic waves of black and gray static. A loud metallic clang echoed out as the spear made contact with the metal of the Replicator's body, sending it flipping harshly backwards to crash into the creatures behind it.

"_Axel! In front of you!"_ Haxon warned me. Jerking my head back, I immediately swiped the butt of the Phalanx downward, striking down a spider Replicator that had jumped up from the ground toward my face. As I resumed my pistol firing, I found myself having to do an odd tap-dance maneuver to avoid getting skewered by the pincers of a few dozen other spiders that had managed to progress towards my feet.

"We need to fall back!" I shouted to Alec as I drew back my leg and swiped out a goal winning Soccer kick that sent several of the Replicators careering back toward the glowing portal!

"Fall back to what? Any second now Bailey and Chellick are gonna storm around that corner with an army of pissed off agents!" Alec shouted as he continued to strike down several dozen of the advancing spiders and beetles with the ends of the Combi-Stick.

After swatting down another spider, Alec twirled the spear around his body in a dramatic fashion as he readied himself for more of the on-coming horde.  
"Come on, who's next?" he asked with a smug look, sweeping his arm out to indicate all of the Replicators, even the ones crawling over and around us along the walls and ceiling.

Immediately several dozen more Replicators of various designs answered his challenge, leaping forward as one!  
Alec's cocky attitude dropped quickly as he was overwhelmed, despite twirling and slashing many of the machines away with his weapon. Several of the spider Replicators were able to latch onto his body, sinking their razor sharp legs through his armour and into his torso, causing him to stumble backwards as he tried to shake them off while also still using the Combi-Stick to smack away any of the hundreds more that kept coming at him.

The Guardian roared out as he extended the talons on his free hand, twisting and turning his body wildly as he clawed and stabbed at the ones clinging to him. This tactic succeeded in knocking away several of the spiders stuck to him, but they were merely replaced by even more as most of the horde began to focus on him!

"Alec, get out of there!" I shouted, backing up several more steps as I kept shooting or kicking down my own Replicators.  
From what I could see, Alec's body was beginning to look more machine than organic. His struggles were becoming more desperate as more and more spiders began to grab onto his body, thrashing and stabbing their legs into him repeatedly in order to bring him down.  
Roaring out like a lion this time, Alec attempted to morph his body, semi-transforming himself back into his Minotaur form. But he was quickly knocked over and pinned down to the floor by a large force of beetle Replicators that jumped on him, allowing them and the rest of the horde to crawl across and submerge him in hundreds of their hissing mechanical bodies!

"Alec!" I yelled over to him as he disappeared from sight. Quickly I threw down my Phalanx, allowing me to reach behind my shoulder and draw my compact Super-rifle.  
Smashing my hand onto one of the three buttons, the casing extended forward and re-arranged itself into the form of its modified Master Shotgun. After the weapon's three short silver barrels had jutted out from the end of the frame, I wheeled around and fired a bright golden Incendiary blast into the squirming pile-up of Replicators.  
All this time I could still hear Alec shouting and struggling in pain from the bottom of the growing pile, but as the flaming rounds shredded into it and damaged several of the spiders, I could here the Guardian give another sound.  
"OWW!" Alec's muffled voice screamed out.  
"Don't worry, I'll get you outta there!" I reassured him as I quickly fired again, breaking several more spiders and further disrupting the pile.

"NO! You're hitting _me_ too!" he screamed out in pain again.

My face frowned as I looked down at the Shotgun.  
"Oh. Sorry!" I called to him apologetically. Suddenly I staggered to the side, grunting in pain as a spider jumped onto my shoulder!

I had been focusing too hard on getting Alec out from underneath the mountain of Replicators that I hadn't been paying enough attention to the rest of the horde that was still advancing on me. Yelling out, I began to throw my arm from side to side, while in my other hand I began using the butt of the Super-rifle to smash at the machine. As this was happening, another spider jumped up and latched onto my thigh.

Taking quick aim with the shotgun, I blasted the creature into hundreds of scattering metal blocks, the incredible destructive power of the weapon being enough to completely destroy it. Un-fortunately that third blast had also overheated my weapon in the process. As I turned back to face the one still on my shoulder, a sparking discharge of red electricity surged out from underneath the snake-scale armour plates along my arm, striking the Replicator in the center of its belly with a powerful bolt and sending it tumbling to the floor.  
_"We have to leave _now_! My electronic defenses can only take on a small number of them!"_ Haxon shouted in my ear.

But before I could even consider running or leaving Alec behind, a massive beetle Replicator charged through the ranks of spiders, flaring its limbs and wings as it dashed and leapt towards me!

"Arrg!" I cried out as I raised my beeping shotgun horizontally, stopping the insect just a mere few inches away from my chest as it slammed into me. The weight and force of the charging machine sent me toppling backwards to the ground, carrying the hissing Replicator with me. After a harsh landing that sent me skidding across the floor by several feet, I immediately began jerking my head from side to side in order to avoid getting impaled by one of the beetle's sharp legs as it began to drive each down toward me!

While I continued to fight against the Replicator lying on top of me, several more spider forms began to grab on to my legs and shoulders, trying to either hold me down or claw through my armour in an attempt to kill me!

I knew this was now a losing battle, with Alec continuing to fight beneath a steady mountain of Replicators, and me getting slowly pulled apart despite my rapid kicking and rolling. Even though Alec was technically immortal, I didn't know what would happen to a Guardian if his Ring Bearer suddenly died, and right now I felt like I was certainly going to die!

'_This isn't how I imagined I was gonna go out…'_ I thought as I bared my teeth and continued struggling, despite the growing despair that was starting to grip my heart.

"I'm sorry guys, I wish I could have found a way back," I whispered to myself, my thoughts focusing on the men and women from my unit, on the faces of my friend Geordi and of a living Captain Cormier, and eventually settling on the image of a green eyed woman I had once cared very deeply for, but in the end was lost to me during my fateful last tour-of-duty.

"I wish I could have been there for you…" I began as my struggles started to weaken; my eyes beginning to glass over with regret as I kept thinking upon face of that one woman, the one that I had ultimately failed while in Afghanistan. Slowly I began letting the beetle Replicator press its emotionless face closer to mine, slowly I began resigning myself to death.

But then suddenly, the un-expected happened!

"Freeze!...What. The. Fuck?" came a familiar Turian voice from farther back, one that sounded quite astonished by his tone.

All of the Replicators attached to me stopped thrashing, both they and I freezing in place as we lifted or craned our gazes up from the floor toward the corner of the alleyway, the machines seeming to be as equally confused as I was right now.

Both Chellick and Bailey, along with several dozen C-Sec agents of various races now stood within the width of the corridor, all of them aiming weapons down at us. However after a millisecond of training their guns on me, all of them began to stagger backward in shock as they took in the massive streams of Replicators crawling across the floor and walls from the still glowing portal down at the alley's dead end.

Each of the agents remained in wide eyed silence for a few seconds before Bailey briefly shook his head to clear his senses, finally taking notice of the thrashing pile of Replicators that Alec was still trapped under, along with the party of insects still pinning me to the floor.

"Oh my God!" Bailey stated in horror as he looked between the two of us, he and his men now beginning to back up even further as the rest of the horde began to cautiously advance on them.

I roared out as I ripped my legs away from the group of spiders that had been pinning me down, lifting them up and sending a powerful kick straight into the belly of the beetle sprawled overtop of me. The large machine was taken by surprise, my kick easily knocking it over into the hundreds of other Replicators scurrying around me.

In the few moments that it and its brethren had been watching Bailey and the other agents, the alarm on the side of my Super-rifle had stopped beeping, signaling that I now had another three blasts at my disposal.

Wrenching myself free of the other spiders, I took aim and fired at the disoriented beetle, blasting it into hundreds of scorched blocks.

"Get out of here!" I shouted back to the agents, kicking several of the spiders away from me as I took aim and destroyed another on-coming beetle.

Bailey was staring at me with an odd stunned expression. But that look was soon broken when a Turian agent closest to him began to scream and flail his arms around his shoulders wildly, desperately trying to throw off one of the spider drones that had jumped onto his back from the ceiling!

"Fall back! Everyone fall back!" Bailey shouted to the others as he snapped up his pistol and began firing at the spiders crawling on the walls.

"What about them?!" Chellick shouted back to him as he pointed the barrel of his gun over at Alec and I, even as dozens more spiders began to drop down from the darkness of the ceiling.

"We don't have enough fire-power, fall back NOW!" Bailey shouted over to the lieutenant as he used the butt of his pistol to smack the spider off of the Turian agent. Chellick nodded and gave a sharp hand signal to the rest of the agents, which was answered by all of them backing up around the corner while firing their weapons at the walls of spiders that advanced on them. As that happened, Bailey quickly grabbed the now injured Turian and slung him over his shoulders, taking a brief moment to cast an almost apologetic look over to me before turning and dashing after the retreating group of C-Sec, with hundreds of spiders and beetles chasing behind him seconds later.

"I like this death better!" I growled to myself with an ironic smile as I fired off my last shot, splitting another beetle in half as I pulled myself up onto one knee, taking the barrel of the now overheated shotgun and using it as a club against the rings of hissing spiders that had now began to surround me.

Swinging it back and forth I began smashing down spider after spider, swiping and lunging and punching until my muscles were practically screaming in protest. As I fought, several spiders ducked under my blows and jumped onto me, but were quickly zapped off by Haxon's sparking red electrical defenses, despite the A.I. shouting in my ear to run and withdraw, to get out of there.

I knew I was still going to die, but in my soldier's mentality this was a bit better of an ending than simply getting held down and slowly eaten alive like I had nearly been just a second ago. In this manner I was at least going to go down fighting.

'_If only my ancestors could see me now…'_ I thought with that same death-defying smile on my lips, thinking back to the ancient Scandinavian legends of Norse Mythology, and how the ideal death for a Viking was to die in a glorious battle so that their soul would be selected and taken up to the eternal feast in Valhalla.

Suddenly three spiders jumped up and grabbed onto the side of my Super-rifle, wrenching it out of my hands!

As I quickly knocked aside another spider with a swiping punch, the ring lit up silver again, causing a swirling silver aura to envelope my fist and travel down my entire forearm. As a beetle Replicator charged up to me, I quickly snapped out of my momentary confusion and delivered a powerful Falcon Punch straight into its face. A small explosion of electricity blasted out as my knuckles made contact with the machine's body, the ring's energy sending it flying backwards all the way down the alley before disappearing into the portal, crushing several of its siblings un-fortunate enough to be in the way!

"_Definitely_ like this death better…" I said with a nod of satisfaction as I proceeded to strike away at the advancing waves of reinforcements. But that relief was instantly dashed, for as I smashed down several more Replicators in a hail of sparks and arcs of electricity from my new power, another beetle along with dozens of other spiders came up from behind and grabbed onto my shoulders!

Even as I tried to fight, and Haxon's defenses continuing to zap at them, they managed to pull me back down to the floor, which allowed many of the spiders that I had been confronting in front of me to jump on to my torso.  
As their combined weight and strength pinned me down, I still managed to strike several of them away with my glowing fist.

But then suddenly, as the others kept pulling at me, another Replicator spider launched itself up out of the flowing river of insects that were splitting around Alec and I. As this Replicator sailed through the air, it descended down upon me, forcing me to quickly raise my forearm over my face in self-defense.

I had been expecting the spider to get blasted away by the ring's powers just like the rest had, but to my horror, this Replicator merely latched on as it landed, wrapping its four legs around the black gauntlet on my glowing arm. More sparks and electricity shot out, but this spider in particular was persistent, enduring the damaging shock to its body as it clawed its way closer toward my face, lifting up its right leg in preparation to bury it through my skull.

And then that's when I saw it!  
Half of the Replicator's leg was missing; having been blown off at the knee joint by what looked to have been a thermal round.

This spider was the original Replicator we had first met after the portal was opened, the very one that I had subsequently maimed when this had all started!

How ironic that it was now going to be the last one I ever saw before my life ended. And since this pretty much was the end, I thought I might as well end it with a few last words that people would remember for years to come.

"Get your stinkin' claws off me, YOU DAMN DIRTY BUGS!" I roared out to all of the hissing Replicators around me, making my voice echo out as loud as I had ever been able to make it.

Suddenly, just before the original Replicator could stab downward, the glowing aura surrounding my forearm brightened up in radiance until it was blinding both the machines and I. Within a second the aura flashed back inside the ring before exploding outward in a massive sweeping shockwave, similar to the one I had used to freeze the _SKYLIFT_ cabin in mid-air back in the Presidium park.

The shockwave travelled down both lengths of the alleyway, flashing around the corner and passing over every Replicator that had come through the portal. The portal itself let out a deep tired groan before disappearing in a bright flash of light, slicing an unfortunate beetle Replicator in half before it could fully step through the opening.

* * *

Farther back down the alley, Bailey and Chellick were standing side by side firing their weapons in sync, both of them backing up along with the rest of the agents and Dock soldiers that they had fallen back to. Every man and woman in the area was grouped around the alleyway entrance, firing their weapons in rapid bursts at the overflowing tidal wave of insectoid machines that were pouring out of the corridor.

It was unlike anything the two lieutenants had ever seen before; machines made up of advanced blocks that could think and identify on a logical level, all moving and helping each other like a living ant-colony. The only problem with this was that at the moment they were moving and helping each other with the sole intent of killing the army of organics in front of them!

"They're still coming closer!" a Salarian agent shouted over to Chellick and Bailey as he and everyone else continued to spit out round after round into the thrashing maw of insects. But the barrages of glowing blue rounds were barely having any effect on them, inflicting only glancing blows or partial damage to the machines' jagged metal bodies.

"Steady! Hold the line, we can't let them escape onto the ships!" Chellick shouted back to the army, which had now begun to spread out to ensure the alien robots wouldn't be able to slip past and board any of the docked war-ships lined up behind them.

Suddenly, as a large line of agents went down onto one knee in front of the rest of the army to form a sort of Red-Coat fire and drop line (or whatever the hell you call it) a bright shockwave of silver light flashed out from the alley, enveloping the horde of spiders and beetles.  
Bailey, Chellick, and the rest of the army ceased firing and ducked down low, shielding their eyes from the blinding glare as the shockwave shot forward and passed over them, dissipating into thin air with a refreshing breeze following a second later.

"What was that?" an agent asked to everyone around him as they all began to stand up, looking back ahead at the army of insects.

Bailey narrowed his eyes as he gazed at the hundreds of machines spread out in front of him; something had changed after that shockwave had passed over. The insects had stopped in their tracks, all of them twitching their bodies in random spasms while turning and looking at each other as if confused.

"What're they doing?" Chellick asked over to Bailey as they watched the machines continue to look around themselves with what seemed like wide-eyed wonder. (Don't ask me how he got that impression, since they don't really have eyes to widen.)

Before the older lieutenant could answer his Turian co-worker, one of the lead beetles turned and made a squawking sound to the rest of the horde, which was immediately answered by the hundreds of spiders and beetles turning around and scurrying back down the alleyway as fast as they could!

"They're retreating, but why?" Bailey stated with a confused cock of his head as they watched the insects disappear into the dark blue-lit corridor, the grating metallic noises generated by their movements echoing loudly off the walls.

Right away both Bailey and Chellick's eyes widened as they turned to each other, the same thought having suddenly occurred to them.

"Axel…" they uttered in unison.

* * *

I snapped open one of my closed eyes that I had wedged shut, taking a cautious look around as I awaited the final killing blow from the spider still clinging to my arm. All of the Replicators around me were still pinning my body to the floor, but something was different now.

They weren't pressing me down with any real force; they were simple holding onto me and turning back and forth between each other as if surprised or confused about what they were doing.

Looking up, I froze with apprehension as my one eye stared down the end of the jagged broken knee joint that the first Replicator had been about to stab into my head.  
But as I looked farther up at the machine itself, I noticed that it too had now froze in place and was now inclining its body slightly toward me, as if curious about something. For a brief moment we both regarded each other, like a person meeting a new friend for the first time, before the spider suddenly straightened up to look at the other spiders and the larger beetle still holding down my shoulders.

Flaring its wing flaps, the original hissed a command to the others, which in turn caused the beetle and its spider brethren to release their hold on me and back a few steps away timidly, as if they were now afraid of the first spider.

The original Replicator hissed to the rest of the spiders sprawled across my torso and legs, causing them to also release me and back away. After that happened the original jumped from my forearm and crawled a few inches off to my side, standing in front of the other spiders before turning around and looking up at me, as if awaiting what my next reaction would be.

Immediately I sprang up onto one knee again. Lunging over and snatching my cooled down Super-rifle from where it had landed, I brought the butt of the Master Shotgun up to my shoulder and aimed its triple barrels directly down at the original Replicator!

The hundreds of beetles and spiders that surrounded me all hissed and flared their wings, backing up several steps. But their hisses didn't sound angered like they had during the battle we'd just fought a moment ago; instead they sounded almost scared, as if my show of hostility was frightening them also.

The original spider held its ground however, un-daunted by the sight of the three gleaming barrels being pointed at it. While I kept my finger pressed tight against the trigger and one eye narrowed down the gun's sight, the injured spider slowly hobbled up toward the end of my weapon, in a careful non-threatening manner, and lightly touched one of the barrels with the sharp end of its front left leg.

I was taken aback by this sudden display, enough so that I slightly pulled back from the weapon's sight and eased off the trigger. After seeing that I wasn't going to immediately blast it to smithereens, the original Replicator advanced closer to me, crawling underneath my shotgun and coming up toward my right leg. I cocked my head slightly in curiosity as the spider began to lightly nuzzle the side of my boot, almost in the manner of a loyal dog showing affection to its master.  
Acting with this thought in mind, I hesitantly let my left hand drop from my gun and gently began to stroke the Replicator's back, slowly moving along the jagged edges of its wing-flaps. The original seemed to enjoy this petting action, letting out a soft humming sound from its inner core like the purr of a house-cat.

My eyes widened with revelation as a thought came to me, an insane and thoroughly impossible thought, but one that might now have been made possible by the ring as I lifted my head up and panned across the entire horde of Replicators surrounding me. All of the hundreds of insects packed across the floor, or still attached to the walls overhead, had begun to take very tentative steps towards me, as if wishing for the same treatment that I was giving to my new friend.

Just then, as I lowered my weapon and continued to pet the mechanical spider, I heard an angered shouting coming from a few meters in front of me. Snapping my head up, I saw the large pile-up of Replicators quickly begin to topple over each other as they all scrambled to get away from the glowing white object that was thrashing and kicking from underneath them. Once all of them had moved away, the large object shrank down to the size of a person, the glowing white light disappearing soon afterward to reveal a hyperventilating and very pissed off Alec lying on his back.

After patting himself down to ensure he was still in one piece, the angered Guardian jumped up to his feet and raised his still active Combi-Stick high above his head, the talons on his free hand still extended and ready to tear the nearest Replicator to pieces!

"Alright you little bastards! Who wants more?!" he snarled as he stared venomously at all of the insects surrounding him, raising the spear even higher in preparation to strike, causing many of them to stagger backwards in fear of his wrath.

"Alec! Hold on!" I ordered over to him with a commanding hand gesture. Rage flashed in Alec's eyes as he continued to breath heavily through his mouth, keeping his weapons raised as he shot his gaze over to me.  
"Hold on? HOLD ON! Axel, these things were driving their little pincers through my head!" he spat furiously at me, rapping his knuckles harshly against the side of his temple.

"Call me crazy, I think I have a hunch about something, a small hunch but a hunch none-the less," I said to him as I returned my gaze down to the spider leaning against me, which was now looking up toward my face.

"A hunch about what?" Alec barked at me as he retracted his talons, while still keeping the Combi-Stick ready.

Turning my head over toward the rest of the massive horde, I pointed a finger at a random spider.

"Hey you, jump in the air for me," I commanded. The spider hesitated as all of the other Replicators turned toward it, expecting a response. After a moment, the spider bent its four legs low before launching itself several feet up into the air, landing back on the floor exactly where it had started from.

Alec frowned at this, his seething anger subsiding slightly as his curiosity began to take over. Turning around to the large beetle Replicator that had been holding down my shoulders a moment ago, I pointed toward it and issued another command.  
"Now you, spin around in a circle."

The beetle immediately complied by rotating its body in a full 360-degree turn.

Alec's eyes widened as he caught on to what I was implying, his rage disappearing in an instant.  
"Axel, are you trying to say that you can…" he began as he quickly looked around at the horde. With a rapidly widening grin on my face, I extended my left hand down to the original Replicator still nestled against my leg, offering my open palm to it. The spider crawled forward and stepped onto my hand, gently using the sharp points on its legs to climb up the slightly scratched snake-scale armour plates along the length of my arm, continuing up until it had reached the top of my shoulder. As it latched and nestled itself onto my armoured shoulder pad like a pirate's parrot, I pointed to it and turned back to Alec with the insanely grinning face of someone who looked like they had just privately bought all of Vancouver Island. The Guardian's jaw hit the floor, his muscles slackening in pure dumbfoundedness as he jerked his head between me and my new Replicator friend several hundred times.

"Why yes Alec. Yes I am!" I answered his earlier half question proudly, sweeping my arms out to indicate the rest of the horde that had begun to crowd closer around us.

The ring had given me the ability to control The Replicators!

"Polly," I stated suddenly with a smile as I began to pet the top of the spider again.

"What?" Alec asked with a cock of his eyebrow.  
"I think I'll call him Polly. He shall be my Replicator Parrot," I explained as I continued to stroke the spider's back, causing the pleasantly humming Replicator to make a happy clicking sound, as if he liked his new name.

Alec rolled his eyes.

"This is coming from the guy who insisted that we're trying _not_ to be pirates," he said as he retracted the Combi-Stick into its compact form and slid it back under his belt.

Suddenly without warning, a massive rush of additional beetle and spider Replicators came scrambling around the corner along the walls and floor at high speed, rejoining with the rest of the horde in a crash of bodies. This was the same army of machines that had chased after Bailey when he and Chellick had retreated from this area a short time ago. Barely a second after these additions had joined us; a Turian C-Sec agent stormed around the corner and fired off a random shot close to my head. All of the Replicators, including Polly, turned toward this agent hissing angrily with their limbs flaring. As this happened, the larger beetles began to group closer toward both Alec and I, as if they were trying to form a protective wall around the two of us.

"Hey! We were just making some new friends here if you don't mind!" Alec shouted at the Turian, quickly snatching up one of Jango's blasters that he had thrown down during the battle and shooting back at the agent. The agent ducked as the destructive blasts impacted into the wall beside him, causing huge explosions of metal fragments and thick jets of cloudy white steam to shoot out from several water pipes that the pistol had just destroyed. The Turian yelled out as the debris and steam struck at him, knocking him to the floor and forcing him to cover his head.

"_Axel, more will be here soon. If these machines are truly on our side now, then…"_ Haxon began in my ear. I nodded as I caught on to what he was saying.  
"The warehouse…" I uttered as I briefly shot my gaze over my shoulder to the wall, immediately seeing the rectangular doorway to the said storage area that I had left open.

As Alec began to fire at several more agents that had begun to emerge from around the corner through the thickening clouds of steam, I quickly turned back to the hissing sea of Replicators surrounding me.

"Alright, listen up!" I barked to the insects over the gunfire going on between the Guardian and the agents. All of the Replicators stopped hissing and turned to me, eagerly awaiting my next instructions.

"We need a way to get out of here so that we can avoid being arrested, and the only way to do that right now is inside there!" I declared to them, jabbing a finger over at the open door.

"And since you guys are now coming with us, I'm only going to say it plain and simple…" I began, holding onto the last part of the sentence for dramatic effect. Then, with a great intake of air and layering my voice with the thickest and best Scottish accent I could manage, I announced their new instructions while sharply jabbing my thumb over my shoulder.

"All of you, INTO THE WAREHOUSE!"

The Replicators took one quick look between the door and I before scrambling towards it, many of them tripping over each other in the massive rush. With Polly still on my left shoulder, I stood up from the floor and de-activated my Super-rifle, reaching backward and re-clipping it onto the back of my right shoulder. Right away I began to have a little fun with the urgency in which the insects were displaying in their movements.

"You! IN!" I pointed and shouted at a nearby beetle, jabbing my thumb over at the doorway again, causing it to quickly trample several spiders as it dashed into the dark warehouse. Pointing to another one, I repeated my order in the exact same manner.  
"You! IN!"

Spinning around, I looked up toward the walls overhead, taking in the sight of the hundreds of spiders crawling across toward the doorway.  
"You lot! IN!" I shouted up to a large group of them, causing several to scramble over the others in droves as they renewed their haste.

"You call that a Scottish accent? That guy from the fish commercial would be weeping if he heard that," Alec called over to me as he kept firing, taking notice of the way I was projecting my voice. Immediately I wheeled on him after that comment.

"You! _Definitely_ IN!" I shouted to him with a smirkish grin, keeping up my terrible accent as I pointed to him and then jabbed over to the doorway. Alec frowned in deep confusion as he snapped his head back to me, pointing to himself in complete disbelief at the suddenness of my order. I jabbed at the doorway again, this time more forcefully while inclining my head toward it. The Guardian raised his eyebrows and threw up his hands in surrender, quickly scooping up his second blaster before charging and dive-rolling past me through the open doorway. After he did that, I bent down and picked up my still active Phalanx that I had left on the ground, resetting the pistol's concussive rounds to maximum before casually lifting my arm and opening fire on the rest of the C-Sec agents still advancing around the corner. As the last of the horde scurried past my legs into the warehouse, I gripped my pistol with both hands and fired several shots into the chests of two on-coming agents, sending them crumbling to the floor moaning in pain while the rest of their comrades began to fire upon me from further back.

"I think we've outstayed our welcome buddy," I stated to Polly in my normal voice after ducking down low to avoid several thermal rounds that slammed into the wall beside me. At my mention of this the Replicator turned to me and gave a small nodding motion, as if he understood what I was saying, right before turning and leaping off of my shoulder into the darkness behind me.

"Well boys, until next time!" I called down to the agents with a grin, snapping off a two-fingered salute. The agents didn't take kindly to this overt mockery, immediately answering my parting words with a firestorm of rounds. Deciding that now truly was the best time to leave, I dove to the left and rolled into the warehouse seconds before the barrage could shred through me. After standing up and slamming my hand against the inner glowing green pad, closing and locking the warehouse's doors, I briefly took aim with my Phalanx and blasted the mechanism into smoking sparking pieces, effectively locking us inside.

"That oughtta hold them off for a while," I said after de-activating and clipping the pistol back onto my belt.

Suddenly I heard a tremendous crash come from deeper within the warehouse, accompanied by a series of grunts and curse words. Turning around, I began to make my way toward the noise through the thousands of Replicators spread out before me, carefully tiptoeing over most of them while others politely moved out of my way.  
"Excuse me…pardon me…coming through, thank you," I said to the spiders and beetles as I continued on my way, carefully adjusting my body to squeeze between the large rows of utility shelves and stacks of massive containers spread throughout the area, all of which were covered in insects anxiously awaiting what they should do next.

After passing through these, I entered into a large clear area of the warehouse that was free of any shelves or equipment. Up above was a large yellow light that shone down onto the clear space, mixing in with the dim lighting coming from the rest of the hanging bulbs spaced across the ceiling. As I walked over into the center of this area, I looked ahead toward the back wall of the warehouse to find the source of the noise.

I didn't have to wait long, for another crash rang out soon afterward as Alec roughly slammed the knuckles of his enormous fist into the wall, causing the entire warehouse to shake slightly from the impact of the hit. Squinting through the darkness, I could just make out the outline of the Guardian's body from the inky blackness, since he had transformed himself back into his enormous King Kong gorilla form again, which caused his thick coat of black fur to conceal him within the shadows. After seeing that his last punch had failed to barely make a dent in the reinforced wall, Alec let out a low growl as he drew himself up, the warehouse's high ceiling allowing him to stand up to his full fifteen-foot height. With a great mighty roar he raised both his fists and slammed them down against the wall, making the entire warehouse shake violently as if it were experiencing an earthquake.

"Whoa! Take it easy big guy!" I called up to him as I came over to his side. The gorilla let out an annoyed huff as his body began to shine a bright white, quickly shrinking down to my size as Alec changed back into his original form.

"Its no use. Haxon was right about the Palladium reinforcements, we can't even bash our way out of here," he said after changing back into himself, indicating up to the two barely noticeable marks he had left behind in the metal.  
_"We still won't be able to create any kind of exit through these walls, but now that we've gotten inside, my short range scanners have detected something that the Dock's security files failed to mention,"_ Haxon stated.

"Which is what exactly?" I asked, both Alec and the hundreds of Replicators beginning to crowd around me in order to listen to the A.I.

"_The material making up the roof of the warehouse has no Palladium reinforcements of any kind, and appears to be nearly a foot thinner than the rest of the walls. If we were to blast a hole large enough for the two of you and the rest of these Replicator creatures to move through, we'd be able to climb out and escape,"_ Haxon explained. I looked up toward the large yellow light, squinting past the blinding bulb to estimate how far up the ceiling actually was. My eyes widened and my head jerked backward a bit once I got my answer.  
"Uhh Haxon, my suit's grappling hook only has about three hundred feet of line in it, the ceiling looks like it might be a _little_ bit farther up than that!" I said as Alec and the rest of the Replicators all looked up as well, he and many of them also having the same reaction.

Just like the purple mass of wall had indicated along the stretch of Docks outside, the ceiling of the warehouse was nearly one thousand feet above us, ten times higher than I had originally thought it was!

'_How the hell does one miss something like that!'_ I thought while shaking my head in disbelief at the sheer height of the cavernous warehouse we were standing in, un-able to comprehend that I hadn't seen how big this place actually was the first time I'd looked into it.  
Crisscrossing over us on several different levels were hundreds of beams and platforms, each beam connecting to a hanging light bulb that was illuminating a designated area, while the platforms themselves held thousands of smaller containers and pieces of equipment that would be needed for the construction of Council war-ships. The enormous light shining over us was attached to one of these said beams, the proximity between it and myself having been one of the key factors that had unexpectedly deceived me into thinking that the ceiling was far lower than it actually was.

"You were expecting us to climb up _that_?" Alec asked the A.I. in bewilderment, jabbing a finger up toward the ceiling.  
_"Not exactly. The ring on Axel's finger must have brought these Replicators to this place for a reason, so I'm just suggesting that we simply apply whatever talent they have and use it to help us escape,"_Haxon countered matter-of-factly.

Suddenly a metallic slam echoed throughout the area from the direction of the main door. Craning my ears, I could faintly hear grunting sounds along with harsh orders being barked from behind the door itself. C-Sec was now trying to bash their way in after seeing that the door's opening mechanism was inoperable.

Which meant that we were now running out of time….._again_.

"Haxon, I don't actually know if the Replicators can build us _anything_ within the short timespan we have, or if they can even use the materials in this warehouse. If we could blast a hole through the roof and then fly out of here that would be great, but I don't think…" I began as I started looking around the area, when suddenly Alec interrupted me.

"Waitwaitwait! You said it would be great if we could blast a hole and then fly out of here. Are you thinking of flying and blasting _at the same time_?" Alec asked me quickly, his gloved hands clasped together in eagerness, and a wide grin forming on his face.

I didn't answer him right away; my eyes at the moment were taking in his odd facial expression with extreme suspicion.  
"Yes…it would be great if we had a machine that could fly and blast through the roof at the same time," I responded after a pause, pretty much reiterating what he had just said.

Alec's eyes shined and his grin spread out to epic proportions as I said this, as if my words were solidifying an idea he had just come up with.

And by the look on his face, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to like where this idea was headed.

"Alec, I've learned that whenever you get _that _look on your face, you've just come up with an outlandish and thoroughly insane plan for solving a problem," I said as I jabbed a finger at him, taking a few steps back from the madly grinning Guardian.

"Axel, we have the materials, we have the capability, and now _I_ have a plan to build it!" Alec declared to me in the deep voice of the Narrator from the opening scenes of the Bionic Man series, indicating both the massive horde of Replicators surrounding us, and the thousands of equipment containers stacked throughout the warehouse.

"And yet somehow in someway whatever this thing is that you've thought up, it's going to involve us getting shot at again, is that about right?" I asked with a casual folding of my arms, even with the metallic slams and grunting coming from the door becoming louder and louder.

"Most likely!" my grinning double confirmed with a nod as he brought up his left arm and activated Forsenski's omni-tool.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, giving myself a dignified Captain Picard facepalm. As that was happening I suddenly felt a light tickling sensation travel up the left side of my body, accompanied by a small weight. Looking over, I quickly saw a Replicator spider gently climb up onto my left shoulder; but this one was different from the others. Half of its right front leg was made up of a dark red metal, which sharply contrasted with the silver-ish grey that made up the rest of its body. There was also a large diamond shaped slash of the same colour going across the middle of its back, covering the front and rear portions along with its spine and most of its wing-flaps.  
As this Replicator slightly inclined its body toward my head, I quickly came to a realization.

It was Polly! And by the look of his new appearance it seemed he had been able to use some of the materials within the warehouse to repair his damaged limb, as well as give himself a splash of colour.

"Hey! Nice paint job," I complemented the spider as I looked over his coloured backside, taking note that this change would allow me to easily distinguish him from the rest of the uniform machines. As I looked him over however, I suddenly felt a slight ping of guilt as my eyes settled on his half coloured leg.

"And…no hard feelings about the leg, eh?" I apologized, wincing slightly as I indicated the limb. But Polly merely chirped and gently nuzzled the side of my cheek, showing that he had forgiven me.

Back in front of us Alec was busy tapping away at the omni-tool's keyboard, cycling through various screens and Extranet links, searching through their contents in a rushed manner to find whatever it was he had thought of for getting us out of here. The furious slams coming from the door were now increasing in pitch and frequency, causing a few of the Replicators to begin looking over in that direction nervously.

"Uhh Alec…" I said, glancing over toward the doorway in time to see it shake violently from another hit. C-Sec must have gotten their hands on something pretty big to be able to smash through a Palladium reinforced door.

"One sec, I'm nearly there," Alec threw over to me without taking his eyes away from his glowing orange screen. I hesitated, keeping my arms folded as I, Polly, and the rest of the Replicator horde patiently awaited the Guardian's answer.  
An entire _minute_ of semi-silence went by, and at the end of it Alec was still furiously typing away at his keyboard.

Both Polly and I looked at each other before turning back to him.

"Alec?" I said again, raising a hand of indication while the metallic slams began to become more gut wrenching, as if the Palladium door was actually beginning to tear apart.

"Almost got it, just one more moment," the Guardian replied. A massive slam rang out from the door right after he said that, accompanied by a crashing sound as several locking mechanisms around it broke off.

"Keep at it, the door is beginning to buckle under," a muffled voice ordered from out in the alleyway, followed by more grunting and another slam.

"Oh by all means then, no hurry, take your time. I'll just go and find us some coffee," I countered sarcastically as I looked around at the thousands of storage containers, half wondering if there might actually be some coffee hidden away here somewhere.

But then suddenly the Guardian gave a shout of victory!

"YUSS! Thank Isis! I _knew_ it would be in this universe!" Alec fanatically fist pumped the air as he shouted this, mixing his words in with a joyous laughter.

After he had calmed down enough he looked over toward the rest of us, immediately sobering up even further once he saw the thoroughly confused frown on my face, and the dead silence coming from the hundreds of spiders and beetles staring at him.  
"Oh sorry, High Egyptian fertility goddess, she and I were sweet on each other one time," Alec said to me, giving a slightly sheepish grin.

"Huh?" I blurted as I suddenly blinked hard, many of the Replicators beginning to chirp amongst themselves as if sharing my confusion.  
"I'm not even going to go in to that second one, but as for the first would you please tell us what the hell you're going on about?" I said as I stepped forward while gesturing toward his still active omni-tool.

"After this first!" Alec responded eagerly as he turned toward the Replicator horde. Immediately he snapped out his hand and jabbed a finger toward the army of insects in front of him, making his voice boom throughout the warehouse.

"YOU THERE! SILVER ONE IN THE MIDDLE!"

There was a moment of pause as the insects looked up at him before they all quickly scattered away from the area he was pointing toward. Sitting directly in the center of the newly created clear patch of the horde was a small Replicator spider, which was timidly looking back and forth at its retreating brethren. After another moment of fearfully looking around, the frightened spider looked up at Alec and slowly raised one of its sharp legs, as if confirming that it was the one being spoken to.

"YES YOU, COME HERE!" Alec ordered to the machine as he went down onto one knee. The spider hesitated before quickly scurrying over to him, scrambling past the others and past the sides of my legs before coming to a stop in front of the Guardian.

"Do you think you and your friends could make _this_ for us?" Alec asked the spider as he extended his left arm in front of it, showing off whatever it was he had found on the omni-tool's screen. I frowned as I tried craning my neck to see what this mystery device was, even Polly attempted to extend his legs to their farthest in order to see higher, but it was no use since the screen was turned away from us.

The Replicator looked at the screen for a moment before looking back up at Alec, and then back at the screen. It continued this looking back and forth routine for several seconds before Alec finally let out a huff of impatience.  
"If it's confusing you maybe this'll help," he said before he harshly placed his right hand on top of the spider's body.  
Right away the Guardian's body stiffened and his eyes lit up bright silver. The Replicator suddenly began to convulse and spasm, thrashing its limbs out wildly as wisps of smoke and arcs of electricity began to run across its body!

"Alec!" I demanded as the rest of the Replicators and I all took a concerned step forward, worried about what exactly the Guardian was doing to the spider.

"Don't worry, I just Mind Mended with him!" Alec reassured us quickly as he pulled his hand off of the spider, causing it to cease its erratic actions. There was a tense moment of silence as we all watched the spider stumble several feet across the floor, in a drunken stupor like state, with smoke still swirling off the top of its body as if it had just been hit by a bolt of lightning.

However, after it had managed to regain its balance, something strange happened. The spider immediately perked up and scurried over toward the rest of the horde, all while leaving behind a trail of smoke and having random electrical spasms travel through its body. Once it had come to a stop in front of its brethren, the spider reared itself up on its hind legs and emitted a rapid series of screeching clicks, relaying the instructions that it had just been given. After it finished, there was a pause as the rest of the machines processed the information.

Suddenly to my surprise, every beetle and spider turned and began scattering in different directions toward the nearest storage containers or pieces of loose equipment, most of them activating the Replicating pincers on the fronts of their bodies and burning their way through the first layers of the rectangular crates.

"See, what did I tell ya, piece of cake," Alec stated proudly as he stood up and swept his hand out to indicate the rapid hum of activity happening before us. I was slowly shaking my head in astonishment, watching this sudden chop-shop mentality with fascination. As I did so I was also keeping an eye on the still smoking spider as it scrambled amongst its siblings while aiding with the building project.

"What did you do to that poor guy?" I asked Alec as I inclined my head over to the periodically sparking insect.

"Well he wasn't going to understand everything we need the machine to do by simply looking at a few pictures of it, so I Mind Mended with him and transferred over everything that I know about it so he and the rest of the our new family can build it properly," Alec explained as he gestured over to the horde.

I took another moment to watch the machines work, becoming more and more confused about what exactly they were building once I saw the assortment of different materials being pulled off the storage shelves. Everything ranging from armour plating, to rocket booster engines, to even a half completed space ship cannon were being collected into the center of the room and disassembled by a large group of Replicators. But as each building component was broken down and transformed into tiny Replicator-blocks, I noticed that their main components were deliberately being taken out and reassembled several feet farther toward the back of the room in the shadows, conveniently where I couldn't see it properly.

"Yeah, so now that _they_ know all about it, would you please tell _me_ what this plan of yours is!?" I nearly barked at him as I jabbed a finger down at his still glowing omni-tool.  
"Basically I've put the plan into two parts, and the first one is pretty simple. Once the Replicators are finished building the machine, they're going to morph their bodies together into a smaller version of one of those gigantic Replicator Spider Ships that they used once or twice on the SG-1 show. That's what _I'm_ going to be using to fly out of here, the second part of the plan involves you…" Alec explained, briefly tapping me on the shoulder.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I quickly stepped out of the way to allow several dozen spiders scurry past me, each of them carrying broken thruster and flight-stabilizer components on their backs, ripped unceremoniously out of the containers behind us.

"I mean that the device we're building is actually for _you._ You're going to be taking point by blasting our escape hole through the roof and leading us out of here," Alec further explained, pointing up toward the thousand-foot tall roof for better effect.

As he did so, I began noticing that many of the Replicators had begun to scale up the walls, climbing onto the lower beams and platforms stretching over-top of us, and burning into many of the smaller storage containers placed on them. As these ones began to pull out whatever was stored in these new crates and pass them along to their siblings lined up behind them, about a hundred of the beetle Replicators began to burn through the support beams connected to the dim light bulbs illuminating the warehouse. All of the bulbs began to flicker and short out as the beetles ripped out their electrical cables, attaching them to their bodies as they leapt from the beams and landed back down on the ground. As I watched them land around us, they quickly crawled over toward Alec's mystery device and began attaching the severed cables to a large frame surrounding its outer hull.

I was still frustrated that I hadn't actually seen what this thing was, and with the lights in the warehouse quickly winking out one by one, we and the device were getting plunged into deeper and deeper darkness, continuing until only the large light overhead remained operational to illuminate the immediate area.  
"I haven't even seen this thing yet, what _is_ it?" I demanded impatiently, briefly glancing over toward the door as another slam echoed out.

With a mischievous grin, Alec brought up his glowing left arm and showed me the screen on Forsenski's omni-tool.

"_This_ is what you're gonna be piloting."

Both Polly and I leaned closer to better see the images that Alec had left on his screen, and when I realized exactly what I was looking at my eyes widened and I reared back in shock.

"You're kidding right?" I said to Alec immediately with a jerk of my head.  
"Nope, this is what they're working on," he answered enthusiastically.  
"You're serious? That thing'll most likely blow up in my face!" I stated more forcefully.

"Come on, it'll be great! You said we need a machine that can fly and blast things at the same time, this is it!" Alec urged with a grin, sounding like a teenager planning on doing an amazing but incredibly stupid action.

"We need a machine that's within reason, there's no way I can fly that thing!" I stated with a sharp jab of my finger at the image on screen. After shutting down the omni-tool, Alec grabbed onto the wrist of my right hand and pulled it up toward my face.

"But with _this _you _will_ be able to, all you gotta do is Mind Mend with the thing and take it slow for a few minutes," he reassured me as he unceremoniously shook my hand back and forth to indicate the ring.

"We don't even know if it'll work properly in this universe, not with the equipment we have," I insisted. Suddenly a tremendous crash came from the door, immediately followed by a sliver of blue light shining through the newly darkened areas of the warehouse.

The door had just cracked open slightly!

"The Replicators know that the original power source doesn't exist in Mass Effect, so I told them to make any necessary adjustments to the machine's design in order to make it work properly," Alec said quickly after we had both snapped our heads toward the door.

"Come on, these guys have devoured Ancient technology and were able to make the Asgard look like a bunch of pansies, I'm pretty sure they can make this _one_ machine work like a dream while using Mass Effect's materials," Alec insisted again as he gestured over to the half finished device concealed in the darkness.

Immediately I gave a gruff sigh of defeat.  
"Alright fine, at least make sure the inside of that thing has leather cushioning," I conceded before both Alec and I (with Polly still on my shoulder) made a dash toward the door. Even with the Replicator's working at top speed it was still going to take them several minutes to finish the machine properly, which meant that we had to buy them some time by preventing C-Sec from coming through that door!

* * *

The solid spiked head of the battering ram slammed into the severely dented face of the door, causing it to shudder once again from the impact. A loud clang sounded out as the spike fell to the floor after it had lost all of its forward motion.

"Again!" Chellick ordered to the group of agents holding onto either side of the large tripod device they had just used to fire the spike from.

Realizing that Axel had successfully sabotaged the warehouse door after several failed attempts to open it, Bailey and Chellick had resorted to using a standard issue battering ram to simply bash it down in order to get inside. But even that proved difficult, for as they soon discovered the door itself was also Palladium reinforced like the walls around it, making conventionally breaking it open nearly impossible. However after quick consultation with several Citadel engineers, Chellick had been able to have a Palladium constructed battering spike and a tripod cannon device brought into the alleyway and set up directly in front of the door.

Now, several minutes after having set up the machine and using it repeatedly against the barrier, both Chellick and Bailey were standing on either side of the doorway with assault rifles raised and at the ready, while behind both of them crouched a handful of C-Sec Tactical Response agents of various races pressed against the wall.

These were Citadel Security's finest emergency response units, the most proficient and deadly within the entire force, many of them even being on par skill-wise with Asari Commandos and Salarian STG operatives. All of them were fully armoured from head to toe in black leather jumpsuits and armour plates, each holding advanced SMGs with red laser sights fixed to their barrels.

Each had a tinted combat helmet covering their head, shielding these men and women's faces from view, but it did not lighten the seriousness displayed in their body language, or the determination they expressed in their silence as they awaited their orders.

(Soooooooooooooooooo….pretty much like a Mass Effect SWAT team)

In front of the door, the group of regular C-Sec agents grunted again in effort as they lifted up the heavy battering spike, quickly sliding it back into the smoking barrel of the tripod cannon. After clearing the area, the Turian gunner standing at the rear controls of the device gave everyone a quick hand-signal before mashing his talon onto a glowing orange button. There was a bright flash of light and an explosion of smoke as the battering spike blasted forth from the barrel, slamming into the most developed dent and causing the door to buckle open even more. Bailey nodded over to Chellick as the spike fell to the floor once again, all it would take would be one or two more hits like that and they'd be able to storm the warehouse easily.

"Who is it!?" a male voice suddenly called out in a sing-song manner from the other side of the door. Bailey, Chellick, and the rest of the Spec-ops all looked at each other in confusion, casting occasional glances down the line toward the door.  
After reloading the battering spike, the gunner called out "Clear!" to everyone before tapping the firing button again.

But as the battering spike was launched from the cannon as usual, something different happened which caused everyone to begin looking frantically back and forth between each other.

As the spike slammed into the door, instead of smashing it open even further like it had before, it merely caused it to shudder and dent a little more, only creating moderate damage as the spike clanged uselessly to the floor.

"WE DON'T WANNA BUY ANY COOKIES!" another voice shouted from behind the door, one that sounded almost identical to the first but was noticeably different.

After getting the agents to load and fire the spike once again, and only getting partial damage similar to the last attempt, the gunner gave a sigh of defeat as he analyzed the readings being displayed on the cannon's holographic control console.

"I'm sorry sirs, the terrorists must be bracing the door from the other side, the battering spike is now showing only sixty percent effectiveness in breaking it open," the Turian stated over to Bailey and Chellick after indicating the tripod machine.

"But it _will_ break open eventually?" Bailey asked as he looked up at the partially demolished door.

"Eventually, however with Axel and Alec pushing against it the time it's going to take for us to get in there has now been effectively doubled," the gunner answered apologetically. Bailey grunted in disappointment but kept his rifle raised anyway.

"This'll be a bit more drawn out than we wanted, but at least all we have to do is wait until…" the lieutenant began, when suddenly Chellick interrupted him.

"Bailey…its Pallin, he's demanding an update," the Turian said forebodingly after his omni-tool sprang to life around his arm.

"Damn it," Bailey cursed quietly.

* * *

Another slam rocked the door, sending Alec, Polly, and I staggering backwards slightly as we kept our bodies pressed against the badly dented metal. I was standing with my hands pressed hard against the higher portion of the door, my teeth bared as I strained to keep my entire body bracing it as best as I could. Polly was on the floor standing on his hind legs next to my right side, his front legs stabbing into the door as he too tried to use all of his mechanical strength to push forward, despite his small size.

Alec gave a deep throaty growl from my left side, having turned himself into a huge Black Bear so that he could stand on his hind legs and brace the entire right side with his large furry body.

As another slam smashed into the door, causing the massive dent in the center to extend several inches farther out, the Bear-Alec grunted as he pressed one of his large clawed paws against the damage, using his massive strength to push it back slightly.

"Well, these guys just don't take no for an answer. TELL YOUR REPO MAN WE'LL NEVER SELL!" The bear said over to me with a chuckle before shouting to the agents outside.

Suddenly there was another flash of light from the alley outside, followed quickly by another metallic slam. Only this time instead of denting it, the front of the solid battering spike speared straight through the metal and lodged itself in the center of the door between both Alec and my heads!

The Guardian and I jerked away from the protruding spike, silent and wide-eyed with shock.

"Alec, perhaps mocking the police while they're trying to arrest us isn't such a good idea, it _may_ cause them to act rashly," I suggested calmly as I politely indicated the sharpened spike head that had just nearly killed us, despite the rapid beating of my heart thumping within my chest.

"What are they using to break in here anyway?" Alec asked as he glowed silver and transformed back into his original form. Craning my neck, I closed one eye and squinted with the other to see out of the small gap that had been wrenched open between the corner of the door and the doorframe, managing to get a faint view of the group of C-Sec working around the breaching machine that had been set up in front of us.

"It looks like some kind of cannon…"  
"Axel!" called out Lieutenant Bailey's voice from near the side of the doorframe. Alec and I shot each other a look as we went back to bracing the door, preparing ourselves for anything that the future Captain might have up his sleeve.  
"Axel, I just finished talking with Executor Pallin, he isn't happy with the way this chase has been going. If you and your friends don't give up now, there's no way I can help you when you eventually get caught," Bailey explained to us through the door.

I looked over to Alec again, both of us cocking an eyebrow in disbelief as we listened to Bailey's words.  
"Do you understand what I'm telling you? If you don't surrender now, Pallin is going to be taking command of this pursuit personally, and his methods concerning terrorists are a lot harsher then mine or Lieutenant Chellick's are."

"Your methods included shooting us right out of the sky!" Alec shouted back defiantly.

Immediately I turned to the Guardian and grabbed onto his shoulder, bringing us both down onto one knee.  
"How much longer do you think it'll take the Replicators to finish the machine?" I asked as I glanced over my shoulder toward the center of the warehouse, taking notice of the shifting silver nest of spiders and beetles that were still disassembling space-ship components and integrating them into my secret escape vehicle.

"I'll have to go take a look, do you think you and Polly can hold them off on your own for a while?" Alec asked as he jabbed a thumb over toward the warped door.  
"I think I can stall them for a bit while you go and find out what our time frame is," I answered with a nod.  
"Genius! Pure Genius mate! Think of a good story to keep them occupied…" Alec began as he clapped me on the shoulder and stood up.  
"Oh! Try telling them that joke you told Forsenski when we crashed Irwin's car, _that_ might buy us a load of extra time," he suggested with a grin. I only scoffed as I shook my head, waving him off.  
"Just go and get us our time limit will you," I said to him as he began making his way through the horde of machines toward the device.

"Axel! Can you hear me in there?" Bailey called out again, regaining my attention.

"Yeah I hear you Bailey, how's life?" I called back to him casually. There was a short pause of silence before the lieutenant answered.  
"My life is pretty tense at the moment son, I've got unknown creatures spawning all over my station, killing good people, and two wanted criminals refusing arrest even when they've been given the offer to surrender peacefully."

I hung my head slightly in regret, thinking back on the numerous C-Sec agents that had been killed by Klingons and Stormtroopers and whatever else the ring had summoned here since I had first arrived on the Citadel. Even though it wasn't technically my fault for all this damage, my presence here was acting as the gateway for all this chaos, and the longer my friends and I stayed here the higher the risk was that the ring would soon summon something even worse to this universe.

"I never meant for any of this to happen Bailey, I have no control over how these creatures are being brought here. All I know is that they're here to challenge me, to hunt down my companions and I wherever we go. And as sad as it is, wherever they turn up, anyone unfortunate enough to be in their way becomes fair game," I said whole-heartedly, pretty much telling the truth about why creatures and people from several different movie genres were suddenly springing up all over the place with the sole intent of trying to either find out why they'd been brought here, or to track me down and kill me.

"If I could stop them from appearing Bailey believe me I would, I would gladly give my life if it meant that no more innocent people would get hurt, but I can't do that. I was brought to this station because I have a task that I must complete, I must help a soon to be hero defeat a great evil that lurks beyond the edges of this galaxy, an enemy who's return is soon to be at hand," I explained gravely.

As I did so I was silently wishing that by telling the truth to Bailey and Chellick, I may be able to convince them to at least look into the prospects of what I was saying, further buying us some extra time for the Replicators to complete the escape machine.

Hearing footsteps a second after finishing my little speech, I turned to see Alec quickly coming back over to Polly and I. Holding up five fingers and mouthing the words 'Five minutes' to me, he came over and silently braced his body back against the door across from my position.

"I believe you Axel," Bailey's voice suddenly said softly.

Both Alec's and my eyes went wide.

"You do?" I asked the door with a frown.  
"You do?!" Alec stated out-loud in astonishment, his face a more severe version of mine.  
"You do?" a muffled Turian voice asked Bailey in confusion from the other side of the doorway out in the alley, a voice I recognized to be Chellick's.

"Don't get me started on the whole defeating the evil enemy of the galaxy and helping the young hero find their way quip, that already sounds like the classic adventure story plot-line…" Bailey began to all of us, earning an arching of my mouth and a series of agreeing nods from Alec and myself.

"But I do believe that you're not in control of the things that have been happening lately, and I might even believe that you and your friends aren't terrorists…" the lieutenant continued.

Alec looked down at me as Bailey kept speaking.  
"Damn, I said stall him by telling a story, not bore him by telling the truth," the Guardian whispered down to me with a half chuckle. I shrugged, putting my hands up in defeat before jabbing a thumb at the door.

"Its working isn't it? If we keep this negotiation thing up we could buy a couple of _hours_ for the Replicators to finish our escape vehicle."

Alec nodded at that as we both brought our attention back to the still talking Bailey.

"…So if you and your group truly are as innocent as you claim to be, why not come out peacefully and explain the whole thing to us, if we work together maybe we could even find a way to stop these creatures from spawning around you and endangering innocent lives," Bailey finished. I shook my head in disappointment after he said that, quickly coming to an obvious conclusion.

"Yeah, if we surrender he's never gonna let us go," I stated dryly.

"Well since they're planning on dragging this out until Pallin gets involved, here's something that'll make them do a double take," Alec said as he turned his head toward the door, earning a curious look from both Polly and I as the little machine crawled up onto my shoulder again.

"Hey Bailey, this is Alec speaking. Have you ever heard the story about The Dog and the Dancing Monkeys?"

* * *

Bailey, Chellick, and every C-Sec agent and Spec-Op around them were all looking at the door with pure confusion written on their faces.

'_The Dog and the Dancing Monkeys?'_

That wasn't all, the creature known as Alec was now going on a list of seemingly random and un-related topics that appeared to have some kind of philosophical meaning behind them, but made absolutely no sense at the same time!

"And then, I threw the Senate at them! I mean literally, _threw _the_ Senate _at them!" Alec's voice added in with a joyous laughter. Okay, only _a few_ of them had some kind of meaning to them.

"What is wrong with this guy?" Chellick asked over to Bailey, jabbing his taloned thumb over to the door. Bailey shrugged, having gotten completely lost as to what Alec was getting at in his random quoting. Suddenly however, all of that changed.

"Clear a space, coming through!" a female voice barked from down near the corner turn in the alleyway. All eyes turned toward that area to see a blue armoured Asari C-Sec agent barge her way through the squadron of Turians that had been posted to keep the area sealed off. As the Asari came up toward the men and women grouped around the doorway, her sharp blue eyes seemed to narrow with distain at the tripod cannon set up in front of it. That expression was only replaced with one of indifference as she turned to look upon Bailey and Chellick.

"Are you Lieutenant Bailey?" she demanded toward the future Captain, her cold stare travelling from his grey hair to the silver metal cast that wrapped around his left arm. "Yes, and just who are you?" Bailey answered and then asked, his tone easily matching the aggressiveness in hers as he took in her appearance as well.

"Agent Ciatra F'Loson, field liaison to Executor Pallin," she responded, her eyes now locking with his in a manner that was anything but friendly.  
"I never knew Pallin had a liaison," Bailey said over to Chellick, adding some cheekiness into his statement just to feed the growing dislike he was already taking toward this woman.  
"I did…" Chellick responded glumly without looking over at Bailey, his green eyes slightly narrowed as he gazed over at F'Loson, to which was answered in kind as she shot a deathly glare at him. (I'm sensing some bad history between these two…)

"Oh, oh, oh! And did I ever tell you about that time I saved the Easter Bunny from Darth Vader and his army of Beetlejuice clones?!" Alec's voice suddenly piped in again, causing agent F'Loson to cock her head slightly as she looked toward the spike skewered door.

"I take it _that_ was one of the terrorists you two have been having so much trouble with?" she asked in a slightly smug tone.

"As a good buddy of mine once said, _'Let your conscience be your guide'_, and right now I'm pretty sure your consciences are telling all of you guys to go home and take the rest of the day off, especially that really irritating blue lady that just showed up," Alec fired off again, quoting Jiminy Cricket before redirecting his announcement toward F'Loson.

Despite the situation, Chellick and Bailey had to fight to suppress humorous smirks at that comment, which in turn only caused F'Loson's new look of anger to become even more enflamed.

Without a word the Asari liaison turned and stormed over toward the tripod cannon, shoving the stunned Turian gunner out of the way as she began tapping away at the weapon's controls.

"What're you doing?" Chellick asked, a sudden seriousness coming over his composure.

"Enacting the Executor's orders, he want's these terrorists captured or eliminated _now_. This cannon is Asari technology and I know what is required to make it work _properly,_" F'Loson snapped without looking at him, her eyes fixed on the now erratically flashing screens being displayed on the console.

"Chellick?" Bailey asked in confusion, not understanding what she meant by that last statement. Chellick gave a sigh of defeat as he looked back at his Human co-worker.  
"The Citadel engineers who suggested this method for breaching the door didn't have the right kind of device to fire the battering spike effectively. So I had an Asari defense cannon brought in, reprogrammed, and jury-rigged to the tripod system," Chellick stated solemnly. Bailey's eyes widened as he looked back at the cannon, noticing a small beeping alarm beginning to emanate from the machine, one that was getting louder and louder by the second. It was powering up for something!

"What kind of defense cannon are we talking about here?" Bailey asked over to Chellick.

"A spare that I managed to have brought from one of the Asari War-Cruisers undergoing a re-fit here at the Docks. If its original programming were brought back online, it would have enough…" Chellick began when suddenly F'Loson cut in.

"Enough destructive force to completely cripple an attacking star-fighter from space," the Asari finished with a subtle tone of satisfaction, the soft sly-like expression on her face only adding to that as she stepped out from behind the cannon.

"Those two are standing right behind this barrier, if you fire that thing it'll kill them!" Bailey protested as he jabbed a finger back to the door. F'Loson only scoffed as she began making her way back toward the turn in the alley.

"If they're smart they'll move away before it blows, either way we're breaching that door," the liaison stated coldly as she spun around to face the group of stunned people.

"All of you move out and get to cover! We have twenty seconds before that weapon fires!" the Asari ordered to the Spec-Ops and regular agents. There was a short pause before all of them began to hastily clear the area, moving to and grouping around the far side of the corner to shield themselves from the impending blast.

As everyone began hustling, Bailey turned back to Chellick.

"Chellick you said yourself that this was now your operation. Order her to turn that thing off! We need Axel alive!" the older Human insisted, gesturing between the rapidly beeping cannon and the now smirking F'Loson who was awaiting the two officers with her arms crossed. Chellick put on a regretful face as he also began to make his way over to the group.

"Its out of my hands now Bailey, if Pallin sent his liaison it means he's beginning to take control of this situation personally, I wouldn't be surprised if he himself soon shows up to direct things. Ciatra is our superior and she speaks as the Executor's voice, which means from here on out we're just going to have to hope that Axel and Alec will be every bit as cunning as they've been up to this point," Chellick explained as he turned and joined the ranks of C-Sec pressed against the other side of the corner.

Bailey blew out an angered breath as he briefly turned his head toward the door before leaving his position.

"Axel!"

* * *

"His army of _Beetlejuice_ clones?!" I asked incredulously. Alec was grinning madly as he looked back on his previous statement.  
"Oh come on! It's the most diabolical pairing there is. Vader, commanding a vast number of insane and unpredictable Beetlejuices, it's the perfect mix!" he announced while using enthusiastic hand gestures to indicate the two characters.

"Those two do _not _go together! It makes completely no sense!" I defended my point loudly with a shake of my head, getting an increasingly severe headache simply from thinking about that atrocious notion!

Seriously? Beetlejuice, and Darth Vader?

"Oh, oh really? Less sense then a random guy who's late for work getting sucked into the world of a video game, and then inadvertently combining that universe with Klingons, Stormtroopers, Orcs, Ogres, Predators, and Xenomorphs?" Alec asked just as incredulously, all in one speedy breath, while holding up a finger on his hands for each of the characters that he'd listed off.

(Yeah…hahahaha…..ahem. He did have a bit of a point there)

I opened my mouth to counter-argue while holding up a hand, but then quickly began to think better of it as I started to draw the parallels between those two scenarios.

"Well…I, uhh…that's not exactly…" I struggled to respond, finding no real way to fight against that statement.

"Axel!" Bailey's voice suddenly called out to us from the other side of the door. Alec rolled his eyes as we and Polly turned our attention back to the dented door.  
"What story does he want to sell us this time? That if we come out right now we might even be able to plead our case to the Coun…" the Guardian began sarcastically when suddenly Bailey cut in, having not paid any attention to Alec's voice.

"Axel if you can still hear me, get away from the door! You've got under ten seconds before we use the cannon to blast our way in there!" the future Captain shouted to us, his voice seeming to be getting fainter and fainter as if he were moving away from us while he spoke.

"_W,wh,WHAT?!_" Alec and I stuttered in unison as we suddenly switched back to seriousness.  
"Oh no, nonononono, don't fall for it, he's gotta be yankin' us around…" Alec began as I snapped my head back up toward the wrenched gap next to the door, quickly peering out at the cannon still set up in the alleyway. Right away the eye I was looking through widened as I saw the flashing, beeping cannon begin to stream out puffs of smoke from its glowing orange barrel.

"Alec, I don't think he's bluffing!" I said, immediately bolting away from the door.

"Run!" I shouted frantically to him as I began dashing down the aisles of equipment shelves towards the hive of working Replicators.

"What?" Alec blurted out, turning his head back and forth between my rapidly fleeing form and the door.

"RUN!" I repeated over my shoulder, even as Polly struggled to keep himself latched on to my other one in mid flight. Alec and I began shouting in panic as he chased after me, both of us putting every last reserve of strength into our legs to get as far away from the door as possible!

There was a brief pause of eerie stillness before the entire door and a portion of the wall surrounding it exploded apart in a massive earsplitting blast of violent orange light, the entire warehouse momentarily lighting up from the flame of the explosion as a soaring column of fire shot out in all directions!

I ducked my head down low as I ran, briefly catching a glimpse of Alec getting hit in the back by a large junk of debris and being hurled end over end half screaming half laughing into the darkened areas near the storage containers, soon being followed by a sickening crash as he landed somewhere.

I gave my own shout of pain as something slammed into the back of my thin shoulder plate, sending me tumbling into a skidding roll across the floor with my arms covering my face to avoid getting hit by any more stray pieces of metal.

All around me I could hear dozens of Replicators jittering madly as they fell uncontrollably to the ground, the powerful shockwave generated from the cannon causing most of the warehouse to shake violently. This in turn sent many of the tall storage shelves toppling over each other like Dominos, and taking many of the material-scavenging spiders along with them!

I groaned after the shaking had passed, tentatively sitting up from where I had roughly landed. Polly had been thrown from my shoulder, and at the moment was off to the side spinning in circles on his back like an overturned turtle/saucer top from the force of our sudden journey.

"Hey, you alright?" I asked the red and silver spider as I reached out and placed a hand on his belly, abruptly stopping his uncontrollable spinning. Polly took a moment to flip himself back up onto his legs, stumbling dizzily for a few seconds before giving me a series of body nods. Looking around, I could see many of the Replicators beginning to pull themselves out of the wrecked shelving units scattered across the area, most of them showing the same comical disorientation in their movements as they began to come over toward the main clear portion of the room.

As they did so, I looked behind myself to see the rest of the Replicator horde begin to crawl out from the shadows into the circular area still being illuminated by the large light bulb overhead, retreating away from our mystery escape device.

'_Have they already finished it?'_ I thought, suddenly excited as I quickly got up to my feet and squinted to see if I could make out what the final product looked like.

"Are you guys all okay? Nobody broke anything?" I asked to the surrounding insect machines, sweeping my hand out to indicate all of them. Several were still stumbling around drunkenly, as if they hadn't quite gotten over their dizziness, but the rest of the others all eagerly nodded an affirmative. Suddenly a metallic crashing sound rang out from the darkness, followed by several painful grunts and harsh curse words.  
"No not quite all of us," Alec's muffled voice called out. Quickly following the string of noises, I came upon Alec lying on his back, pinned underneath a large pileup of debris and shattered containers. After several seconds of struggling, both the Guardian and I were able to heave each of the objects off of his body, enabling me to help him back up to his feet.

"Now that that's over with, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!" he shouted as he brushed himself off while jabbing a finger over to the charred, smoking remains of the doorway.

"Haxon, I've got nothing here," I asked to the A.I. as I pressed two fingers to my ear.

"_It was exactly what I was afraid would happen after I took a scan of the cannon they were using to breach the door. That thing was actually an Asari defense turret taken from one of their Dreadnaughts, most likely re-programmed in order to fire the battering spike they were using earlier,"_ Haxon explained. I frowned as I took in this information, looking around at the rest of the high walls.

"Haxon, when you deliberately told me that we couldn't blast our way _out_ of here, I assumed that went vice-versa for C-Sec as well!" I stated sternly.

"_And it would have, had they not used a _ship-cannon_ on an already demolished doorway!"_ the A.I. snapped back. Suddenly we heard the thud of armoured boots echo out from the blasted entrance.

"The blast tore apart half of the alleyway, advance with caution!" barked the voice of agent F'Loson, quickly being answered by more boots as the force of C-Sec agents began making their way back toward the door.

"Okay, we are now officially out of time. Sparky! Get over here!" Alec stated loudly before calling into the ranks of Replicators. Immediately the still smoking and periodically electrocuting spider scrambled out from within the horde over toward where Alec stood.

"Tell the rest of our buddies to begin enacting the first part of the plan," Alec ordered to the machine as he indicated the remainder of the horde. The spider, evidently nicknamed 'Sparky', turned around and began broadcasting a rapid series of clicks and screeches to the other machines.

After a very quick processing period, all of the Replicators turned and scrambled toward the far back wall of the warehouse, eventually disappearing into the shadowy darkness once they had all left the cone of light.

"We don't even know if they finished it Alec, if I try to pilot that thing the way it is now it could be a one way trip," I said as I pointed over to the seemingly finished machine. The boot echoes outside were now just a few meters away from entering the blasted hole in the wall, limiting any other good options we still had.

"Well, now's as good a time as ever to find out," Alec suggested. I gave a half nod.  
"Good point." Reaching one hand to my belt and another to the back of my shoulder, I drew my Phalanx pistol and Super-rifle and handed them over to Alec.

"I don't think these will fit very well inside my new vehicle, so take care of them for me, and try not to break anything," I said as he accepted the weapons, quickly sliding the Phalanx under his belt alongside Jango's blasters and taking a moment to examine the advanced gun more closely.

"Nice! I'll definitely take care of this thing," Alec stated enthusiastically as he looked over the sleek black and dark grey casing that made up the Super-rifle's compact form before setting it down on a nearby crate. (Lets be honest, with two blasters, a Phalanx, and a compact Predator spear, he doesn't have much more room to spare in his belt)

Turning around to Polly, I offered my arm down to my spider friend, to which he quickly climbed up onto my forearm. But before he could advance any further, I stopped him and maneuvered his body around so that he was facing toward Alec.

"Polly, I've got a job for you. I need you to stick with Alec until we've managed to evade C-Sec for a while, can you do that for me?" I asked the spider gently, using my free hand to stroke the blocks that made up his back. The Replicator hesitated for a moment before reluctantly nodding, following this by eagerly nuzzling my hand. I smiled at this before looking up at Alec.

"Hey dude, _hold my spider!_" I stated quickly before snapping my arm forward, sending Polly flying through the air toward Alec's head!

The Guardian instinctively raised his hands and caught the machine, although shouting out in sudden fright as he did. He continued to shout for another moment as Polly squirmed out of his grasp and clawed his way up Alec's arm before coming to a tense stop on my double's shoulder. Alec cringed slightly before relaxing, but also shooting over a murderous glare to me as he did.

"I'm still not easy with these things crawling on me!" he barked angrily, jabbing a finger up at the machine perched on his shoulder. Polly, as if not liking being called a 'thing', snapped at his extended finger with the sharp pincers on the front of his body, only to have Alec lightly swat him with the flat of his hand in return.

Laughing at this silent bickering going on between the two, I quickly crossed over toward my newly created machine that I had been so anxiously awaiting to see. The Replicators had built a sturdy construction platform out of interconnecting blocks that they had carved from the non-essential materials in the warehouse, using it to build the rest of the device from the platform up. Stepping up onto this, I came face to face with the large, sleek, and well-built machine that had been customized to fit my size. Arching overtop of the machine from one side to the other was a large pair of silver pillars and metal tracks larger then a full grown person, both made up of the same interconnecting Replicator-like blocks that made up the construction platform.

"Wow. They did a great job, but how do I get into it?" I remarked to myself as I took in every detail of the machine, catching a distorted view of my reflection in the shiny metal that they had used to create most of the outer hull. However, suddenly after I said that, the thousands of blocks on both sides opened up to reveal several large mechanical arms hidden inside the pillars' superstructures.

I yelled in surprise as the arms immediately reached out and wrapped their pincer clamps around my own arms and legs, dragging me closer to the shallow pit that had just opened up in the center of the platform while the rest of the arms quickly dis-assembled the machine into many separate pieces!

"Uhhh, okay. Be gentle please!" I said awkwardly to the emotionless arms as they easily manipulated my body into standing within the pit between the two pillars, allowing the other arms and smaller automations to begin re-assembling the machine over top of my limbs. As my arms were pulled slightly into a T formation, with the machine's electronic functions quickly being clicked into place around them afterwards, I could hear a slight chuckling coming from in front of me. Taking my eyes away from the mechanical limbs working around and overtop of me, I could see Alec standing within the center of the cone of light with Polly still sitting on his shoulder, and a very obvious smirk on his face, clearly amused at my plight.

"Comfortable?" he asked as he folded his arms in satisfaction, probably feeling that this was his way of getting back at me for having to take care of my Replicator friend.

"Yeah, I guess, OOHF!" I answered hesitantly before suddenly having the wind knocked out of my lungs as one of the arms harshly clamped a main portion of the machine down over my chest.

"So while I'm getting this thing prepped for takeoff, what're you going to be doing?" I asked the Guardian as the final portions of the device were connected together.

"I'm your Guardian, I'll do what I do best until that thing's ready," Alec stated with a small smile as he inclined his head to the machine I was rigidly standing in, all while cracking the knuckles on his hands to subtly convey his point. I nodded back to him, cringing slightly as something else was roughly fitted around my waist.

"Just try to keep the broken bones to a minimum…OWW!" I reminded him before giving out a muffled shout of pain as a form fitting metal helmet was unceremoniously clamped and fastened over my entire face and head, plunging my vision into complete darkness.

"_I've been able to interface with the machine's internal core and operating controls, the amount of detail the Replicators put into this thing is astonishing. Unfortunately the internal systems require a massive infusion of electrical power in order to kick-start…"_ Haxon's dis-embodied voice said into my ear as he also became accustomed to the device we were both stuck in at the moment. However, he was soon interrupted by several dozen thudding sounds as the mechanical arms outside began attaching the numerous awaiting cables and wires severed from the many light bulbs in the area to the outer hull of the machine.

"_AHA! I see now, the preliminary systems are coming online. They're asking for confirmation to begin collecting power from the many electrical lines that have just been attached to us. I have to warn you though Axel, the electricity needed to fully power this thing will blackout a wide range of areas across the Docks, but…"_ Haxon began again after analyzing what was required. Up ahead I had begun to hear several people shouting, along with gunfire and the crashing of objects as Alec began confronting the invading C-Sec agents.

We were now out of time to be considering things. We either had to do or die! Or in this case, do or…get arrested and sent to jail for the rest of our lives.

"Just do it and get this thing fired up!" I ordered to the pitch black inside of my helmet. Right away I could feel a slight vibration begin to run throughout the metal of the machine, accompanied by a growing humming sound.

Outside the device, the large single remaining light bulb in the warehouse sputtered and slowly faded out as all of the electrical power across most of the entire Military Docks was redirected and channeled into the machine's core.

* * *

Great swaths of grey smoke swirled around the Spec-op agents as they advanced through the jagged hole left behind after the cannon's blast. As each agent moved in tactical formation, activating the deep red laser sights on the ends of their weapons and giving quick hand-signals to each-other as they moved across the scorched debris strewn ground, the remaining force of regular C-Sec agents followed closely behind them.

"Spread out, and keep you're concussive rounds to their maximum settings," agent F'Loson hissed quietly to every agent as she drew her pistol and crept behind the Spec-Ops, Bailey and Chellick silently flanking her as they too advanced forward.

Everything was dead quiet as they moved, panning across the toppled shelving units and cracked open storage containers with the beams of their activated flashlights, searching for any clues as to where the terrorists had gone.

"Spread out a bit more, we don't want to risk…WHAT THE HELL!" one of the agents began ordering to the others when all of a sudden he jumped to the side, pointing his weapon down at something that had just crawled out of the remains of one of the storage containers. All of the agents now had their weapons trained on it, the bright flashlights on the ends of their barrels illuminating a badly damaged and slightly disoriented mechanical spider. As they watched the insectoid machine hiss weakly at them, one of the Turian Spec-Ops drew an advanced shotgun from his lower back and blasted the spider into a thousand tiny blocks with one shot.

"Was that one of those alien machines you mentioned earlier, the ones that might now be aiding Axel and Alec?" F'Loson asked over to Bailey as they looked down at the charred blocks scattered over the floor.

"There were a lot more of them the last time we saw…" Chellick began to add in.

"Hey! What gives?!" an angry voice barked out at the group of agents from close by. All of them instantly flicked their weapons over toward the source of the voice.

Standing less than ten feet in front of them, wearing the same odd assembly of black and red armour that Bailey and Chellick had seen earlier, was none other than the terrorist Axel himself!

As the agents' flashlight beams shined onto his body, they noticed another one of the strange mechanical spiders perched on his left shoulder. This one however was different from all the others the agents had seen, half of its right leg was made up of a dark red metal, with that same colour also splashed out across the machine's backside in a diamond formation.

As the agents and Spec-Ops kept their laser sights focused on Axel's chest-plate, this oddly painted spider reared itself up slightly and hissed venomously toward them, focusing especially on the Turian still holding the shotgun.

"I could be wrong, but I don't think my buddy here took kindly to you blasting away his brother like that," Axel pointed out with a nod of his head down to the scattered blocks on the floor, casually placing his hands behind his back.

"Axel this chase has gone on long enough, give yourself up and come with us quietly," Chellick demanded as the agents began to move toward the terrorist. But Axel merely chuckled with a shake of his head.

"How many times do I need to tell you people? _Big_. _Bad_. _Robot Squids,_ are waiting beyond the outer edges of this galaxy ready to invade once again. _Me_. _Super awesome_. _Dashing_. _Extraordinary Strange Hero_, come to help save this said galaxy from said Robot…" but Axel was abruptly cut off in his narrate description.

"Oh enough of this bullshit!" agent F'Loson barked out as she stormed forward, shoving the Spec-Ops out of the way as she came up in front of the terrorist.

As she did this, both Chellick and Bailey had begun staring at their suspect with extreme suspicion, having caught on to something odd about the way this whole situation was playing out.

"I don't remember Axel ever speaking like that," Bailey whispered into Chellick's ear, remembering back to all the brief times that he and the strange blonde man had spoken to each other, or rather shouted at each other.

"He sounds more like Alec right now," Chellick commented back, reflecting on the comedic and almost announcer like way Axel had just spoken to them in. At that moment Bailey and Chellick's eyes went wide, both of them shooting the other a look as they came to the same conclusion.

"Mr. Axel, under the authority of Executor Venarl Pallin I am hereby placing you under arrest for the crimes of resisting arrest, assault and battery of law enforcement officers, destructions of both public and private properties, as well as the announcements to commit terrorism against the races of the Citadel Council, and also promoting and instigating mass hysteria and dissent amongst the general populace. There are also accessory to murder charges being considered against you due to the unexplained creatures that seem to appear within your presence, thus far resulting in the deaths of over two dozen men and women of the Citadel Security Force," F'Loson stated to Axel, briefly indicating the painted spider on his shoulder as she mentioned the murder charges.

"Murder? Now hold on a minute lady, accessory to murder only works if the suspect knew that a murder was going to take place and did nothing to prevent it. Once we knew what was happening, my friends and I went out of our way to help your C-Sec agents fight off the Xenomorphs, just go ask Sgt. Verrak Vakarian," Axel explained with that same casualness in his tone.

"WAIT A MINUTE! Axel never met Vakarian! He was in one of the stores the whole time!" Chellick shouted in realization as he remembered back to the Corridor Incident, when the strange serpent creatures had cut off communications between the Ray gunship and Sgt. Vakarian. Even though he hadn't been able to hear what had been exchanged between the two, Chellick distinctly remembered seeing _Alec_, not Axel, standing in front of and talking with the Turian squad-leader on one of the co-pilots' thermal imaging screens.

Unfortunately however, Chellick's warning came too late.  
"You're coming with us _now_," F'Loson stated evenly as she reached out to grab Axel by the arm. Just a second before her mind registered Chellick's voice, Ciatra sharply closed her fingers around the center of the terrorist's scale armoured bicep, intending on spinning him around and placing his wrists in hand-cuffs.

But to her horror, her hand simply passed right through him!

Swirls of thick grey smoke trailed behind her arm as she swept her hand back and forth through his chest area, cutting him in half for a second before the smoke reassembled his body. It was like he was a ghost; one who was standing in front of her but at the same time wasn't there at all.

"Gottcha!" the Axel ghost stated with a hilarious chuckle.

"What is this thing?" one of the regular agents asked from the group. Narrowing her eyes, agent F'Loson reached up higher and swiped her hand through the ghost's head and shoulders, causing his face and the entire body of the mechanical spider next to it to disappear briefly in a flutter of smoke before re-materializing.

"Hey!" the ghost snapped in annoyance at this.

"It must be some kind of hologram, the real Axel should be nearby," F'Loson said as she readied her pistol while looking around at the collapsed shelving units.

"Not exactly ladies and gentlemen, this is really just a parlor trick of mine," came another voice identical to the ghost Axel. Spinning around, everyone did a double take as their flashlights landed on another Axel sitting up on one of the slanted shelves, casually hanging his legs over the edges like he didn't have a care in the world. This Axel was dressed in a jet-black officer's tunic with silver trimmings, while wearing knee high leather boots, gloves, and a black and silver officer's cap. Wrapped around his left arm was a red and white armband with a black Swastika symbol stretching out from the center.

"A Nazi uniform?" Bailey asked to no one in confusion, remembering back to the images he'd seen of the SS wearing this style of dress during the history courses he'd taken in school back on Earth.

"Hey I didn't pick it, it just sort of…" the second Axel clone began down to Bailey before suddenly being cut off by a pistol shot ringing throughout the room. A thermal round instantly sliced through the clone's forehead, sending out more swirls of grey smoke similar to the first one.

"Okay lady, that was just rude," the first Axel ghost said to F'Loson as he pointed an accusing finger at the smoking pistol she had just fired from.

"What if that had been the real one?!" an agent demanded from the liaison as he indicated the re-materializing SS Axel up above them.

"Oh I doubt the real Axel would have let himself get caught like this so easily. Then again he might, who knows with intergalactic terrorists these days," came another voice. All of the agents spun around to find _ANOTHER _Axel clone leaning against the toppled shelving units beside them, dressed this time in an older style of civilian clothing, complete with a black leather jacket and an odd set of shoes that Bailey recognized to be sneakers.

"We don't have time to be messing around with some lousy smoke and mirrors! Where are you hiding Axel?!" F'Loson demanded angrily toward the first ghost still standing behind her.

"Ciatra, this isn't Axel talking," Chellick hissed over to F'Loson as he eyed the other two clones, both of who seemed to be tensing their muscles in readiness for something. The first ghost leveled his gaze at the Asari; all humour leaving his face as he unclasped his hands from behind his back.  
"Why don't you go and _find_ him," he breathed coldly to her, the mechanical spider on his shoulder adding in a small hiss for better effect. F'Loson stared back at him before giving a scoff, un-phased by his intimidation act.

"Fine, there's nothing you can do to stop us anyway," she stated flatly as she began to make her way past him, intending on simply walking right through his ghostly figure.

But instead of passing through him like her hand had a moment ago, she actually bumped into him!

He had made himself solid!

Snapping her shocked gaze up to meet his now narrowed eyes, she felt one of his hands clamp down around _her_ arm.

"I beg to differ," he stated in an equally flat tone before driving a rock solid punch straight into her armoured stomach with his free hand!  
The force of the strike sent F'Loson doubling over in pain, but the ghost Axel only tightened his grip on her body as he quickly lifted and threw her into several of the Spec-Op agents! As the liaison and these agents tumbled to the floor, the rest of the C-Sec personnel trained their weapons back on the first clone. But before anyone could properly retaliate, the other two clones suddenly set upon the group with a loud inhuman roar, launching themselves from where they had appeared and openly attacking the agents using a combination of ancient martial-arts techniques.

"There's two more behind us!" a Salarian agent shouted out before getting struck in the face by a vicious roundhouse kick sent from the SS Axel. As Bailey struggled to keep his balance amidst the now thrashing group of people, he shot a glance over toward the blasted doorway, catching sight of two more Axel clones suddenly materializing out of swirling smoky vortexes before charging into the fray. One of them looked identical to Alec, dressed in the bullet torn SS uniform and dented samurai armour he always wore, while the other was dressed in the black T-shirt and cargo pants, along with the samurai gauntlets and SS jackboots, that Axel had worn during the riot in the Presidium park.

"Make that three!" Chellick shouted over his shoulder as he dodged a swipe from the civilian Axel. A maniacal laughter rang out after this announcement as another Axel leapt down from the higher levels of the destroyed shelving units, slamming both his fists down onto the heads of two agents as he landed. This new clone was suited in the exact same armour that the first clone was, the only difference being that this one didn't have the painted spider machine on his shoulder.

For several hectic seconds the clones continued to strike down each of the agents, easily disarming several of their weapons and forcing them to fight hand to hand. This only further gave the advantage to clones, who were quickly proving themselves to be ten times more proficient in the art of melee warfare than even the Spec-Ops agents. As more and more agents tumbled to the floor snoring, Bailey and the others continued to lash out at their inhuman attackers with everything they had at their disposal. Unfortunately however their efforts were all in vain, for as each of the C-Sec agents' strikes, swipes, or thermal rounds landed against a clone's body they would simply pass through in a swathe of smoke, following immediately by the clone re-materialize and cutting the agent down with his fists!

"We won't last much longer!" Chellick shouted to Bailey as he swiped through one of the clones' stomachs with the butt of his assault rifle. But as he did so, Bailey noticed something strange. As Chellick's weapon passed through the clone's ghostly figure, its entire body began to flicker and disappear sporadically, like a video-reel that was going out of focus. Suddenly all of the clones began to cringe, some of them even grabbing onto the sides of their heads and yelling out in pain. Acting on this momentary break from their painful beatings, the few still conscious Spec-Op agents focused their weapons on one clone in particular and fired a combined barrage. The clone gave out a final scream as the thermal rounds passed through him, enveloping and finally dispersing his form into evaporating smoke wisps. The other clones immediately recomposed themselves, snapping up and resuming their melee with slightly renewed vigor, but all while their bodies continued to flicker out of phase.

"They must be weakening, keep it up agents!" F'Loson shouted to the remaining C-Sec as she resumed her fighting.

But instantly after she said that, a burst of concussive thermal rounds blasted out from the darkened areas amidst the wrecks of shelving units, catching Ciatra in the back!

Diving to the floor to avoid a powerful swipe from the SS Axel, Bailey quickly cast up a glance just in time to see another burst of rounds spit out from the shadows, striking down two more regular agents.

"Chellick! Toss me your grenade!" Bailey shouted over to the other lieutenant as he fought with the civilian clone. After the Turian quickly tore a frag grenade from his belt and threw it over to the older Human, Bailey immediately slammed his thumb down onto the device and lobbed it over in the general direction that he had seen the bursts coming from.

There was a brief yell of surprise from the unknown sharpshooter before the grenade exploded, sending out a large blast of smoke and debris. As that happened, the unseen attacker was thrown out from the wreckage, landing harshly on the floor and rolling several feet before coming to a stop on his front.

Squinting through the smoke, Bailey was able to clearly make out the details on this new assailant. He was holding onto a smoking and heavily modified Master Assault rifle, while also carrying one of the new M5-Phalanx pistols in his belt, along with two silver unidentified pistols, as well as a short spear-like weapon on his lower back. Squinting further, Bailey noticed another red and silver mechanical spider scurry toward him after having been thrown off his shoulder once he had landed. As he took in every detail Bailey also noticed that this man was wearing the exact same dented armour and torn uniform he had seen on many occasions during the duration of this mad chase, the exact same attire worn by the infamous Alec, and that was because of one very obvious reason.

It _was_ Alec. The _real_ Alec!

* * *

"This isn't good," Alec grimaced in pain to Polly, who was still tensely perched on his shoulder watching the unruly brawl continue to play out in front of them. He had never created these many spectral copies of his Ring Bearer before, or sustained them in prolonged combat for this long. Using his free hand to massage one of his temples, Alec tried to relieve the growing headache he was experiencing, while at the same time doubling his efforts to sustain the Kung-Foo twirling clones for just a few moments longer. But his efforts were becoming more and more stretched as the fight dragged on, the clones' bodies were beginning to phase out, sporadically disappearing and re-appearing as the Guardian's concentration began to loosen. This mental strain also appeared to be giving the clones a great deal of pain as well; several of them actually began cradling their heads in their hands and crying out as the stress hit them.

Suddenly Alec cringed and grabbed the side of his own head, wedging his eyes shut as a massive wave of tiny needles stabbed into his brain. One of the clones screamed as several Spec-Ops fired a combined barrage into his torso, causing him to quickly become a swirling mass of grey smoke before disappearing throughout the air.

"That ought to free up some space," Alec whispered to himself as he refocused his efforts, the loss of one of the copies relieving his headache somewhat and allowing him to slightly strengthen the remaining Axels, but not enough to keep them from flickering in and out of phase.

"They must be weakening, keep it up agents!" shouted agent F'Loson amidst the brawl.

"Unless of course they've got backup waiting lady," Alec whispered with a small grin as he brought up Axel's activated Super-rifle, having already Mind Mended and learned how to operate it with some additional help from Axel's memories. Keeping himself hidden within the shadows of the jagged wrecks of shelving units, Alec brought the scope of the Master assault rifle up to his eye and slightly extended the barrel out through the piles of debris surrounding him, feeling a lot like one of those Russian or German snipers from the movie _Enemy at the Gates._

As F'Loson spun around to confront another of the clones, Alec squeezed the trigger on the rifle, firing a short burst of pre-set concussive rounds. The Executor's field liaison shouted in pain as the rounds impacted into her backside, sending her crumbling to the floor. Flicking to the rest of the struggling group, the Guardian fired more shots in another burst, sending two more agents spinning to floor.

"Chellick! Toss me your grenade!" Bailey's voice shouted from somewhere nearby.

'_Grenade?'_ Alec thought suddenly, taking his eye way from the rifle to search for where Bailey was. Barely a second afterward, a small metal disk clanged against the metal of the destroyed shelves after having been thrown over from the floor, bouncing against several pieces of debris before landing directly by Alec's left side. As the Guardian and Polly stared down at it, they noticed a small beeping alarm and several flashing lights along its structure. Alec's features instantly took on a look of hurt and insult as he realized what it was.

"Now that's not fair!" he yelled out a millisecond before the device detonated.

Shouting in pain as the explosion caught both he and Polly in the front, Alec was blasted out of his hiding place amidst a cloud of smoke and debris that had been thrown in all directions. The Guardian flew through the air for half a second before slamming down and rolling into the exposed area of the aisle-way that the C-Sec agents were currently fighting in.

"Oww…" Alec muttered under his breath as his powers quickly healed the damage to his body, allowing him to roll over and sit up slightly before brushing some of the debris off himself. Off to the side, Polly stumbled back up toward him, having been thrown from the Guardian's shoulder after the blast.

"THAT'S HIM! He's the real one!" shouted Bailey's voice from nearby. Snapping his head over toward the brawl, Alec could see Bailey getting up from where he had been laying and bringing his assault rifle to full power. Soon Chellick, along with several agents, and a miraculously still conscious Ciatra F'Loson began to mimic the future captain by bringing their guns to bear on the Guardian.

"Guess our ruse is up little guy," Alec said over to Polly before lunging up to his feet, bringing Axel's smoking Super-rifle up to his hip and opening fire!

Swiping the barrel from left to right, Alec roared out as he sprayed concussive rounds at the remaining group of agents, sending several tumbling backwards to the floor while causing others such as Bailey and Chellick to dodge behind cover.

"Electron spikes now!" F'Loson shouted to the last three remaining Spec-Ops who were unsuccessfully shooting Alec in the chest, right before she got hit full on in the front by a barrage of rounds, this time staying down as the shots rendered her unconscious!

But her most recent order had not gone unheard, for immediately after she hit the floor the three agents flicked several switches on the sides of their weapons, allowing them to fire out small jet-black spikes attached to electrical wires.

At first Alec only grunted in discomfort as the spikes sunk into him, but immediately afterward he began to cringe and scream in pain as small arcs of electricity began to travel down the length of the lines and into the spikes jutting out of his torso.

He was being shocked by some kind of futuristic Mass Effect Taser weapon!

As the Guardian fell to one knee, still screaming in pain as he tried to resist the enormous voltage going through his body, more screams began to sound out from farther down the aisle-way. Further back, the remaining Axel clones had begun to stumble around, breaking off from their fights with the few remaining agents as they clamped their hands around their heads and yelled in pain once again, as if experiencing the same unbearable torture that Alec was at the moment. Within seconds the flickering clones began to evaporate into wisps of smoke, one by one vanishing into nothingness as Alec lost his concentration.

"Sir! All electrical power across the Docks is vanishing, we're experiencing massive blackouts in several major areas!" one of the regular agents called to Bailey and Chellick as they stood up from their covers. Before either of the lieutenants could respond, a loud humming sound shot through the warehouse, soon followed by the single large orange light bulb illuminating an area farther toward the center fading out and plunging nearly everything into total darkness.  
"This can't be a coincidence, Axel's gotta be up to something somewhere around here," Bailey quickly said over to Chellick as he pointed over to the area the light had once been lighting.

"Maybe _he_ can tell us what that is when he's ready to talk," the Turian said as he nodded his head down to the still cringing Guardian as he continued to fight against the electrical attack.

As Alec slowly began to crumble to the floor, un-able to break out of the electrical snare he was in, the unexpected suddenly happened. With all their attention focused upon the weakening man, the C-Sec agents had neglected to keep an eye on Polly. Also noticing this, Polly made the snap decision to leap into the air and sever through two of the Taser lines with his Replicator pincers!

"Thank you Polly!" Alec barked out as he used his free hand to grab onto the last line still shocking him, the loss of the other two allowing him to finally move somewhat. With a great surge of strength, Alec yanked the astonished Spec-Op forward and drove a powerful strike into his helmeted face, clotheslining the agent and knocking him out cold.

"Time for the backup plan," Alec muttered painfully as he quickly reached to his belt and pulled out a small detonator that he had found amongst the shelving wreckages.

"No!" Bailey shouted to the Guardian as the other two Spec-Ops tried re-aiming their guns on him. But Alec was faster, immediately mashing his thumb down on the detonator's red button before either of them could get a shot off.  
Suddenly a nearby container exploded apart as a loud blast coupled with a powerful shockwave fired outward, harshly knocking over the agents and briefly veiling the area in even more swirls of smoke.

Coughing slightly as he threw away the detonator, Alec offered his arm down for Polly to climb on as he began to stand up, looking over the area in awkward surprise.

"I was almost a hundred percent certain it said _Smoke_ grenades on the side of that crate, not whatever the hell that was," the Guardian commented to the spider after it had perched itself on his shoulder, wincing slightly as he began pulling out the Electron spikes that were still stabbed into his chest.

"Reinforcement teams, move in!" a gruff male voice shouted from outside in the alleyway, accompanied by a thunder of boot-falls as dozens of Human and Turian Marines began to charge through the blasted hole in the wall!

"Oh, come _ON!_ That is _SO_ not fair!" Alec shouted in complaint as he turned and dashed further into the darkness of the warehouse before the combined marines could find him with their flashlights. As he ran, he transferred the Super-rifle to his left hand and activated Forsenski's omni-tool, quickly patching himself into the radio system that he had had the Replicators install into Axel's machine.

"Axel, I think I've bought you all the time I can, get that damn thing moving!" he hissed into the speaker as he vaulted over several toppled storage containers, making his way toward the warehouse's far back wall as fast as he could so as to get to his own escape vehicle, which hopefully had been completed by now.

* * *

"Bailey! Bailey come on get up, this is our chance!"

The future Captain groaned as he was rolled over onto his back, the sound of Chellick's sharp voice cutting through the ringing in his ears.  
"What happened?" Bailey asked groggily as the Turian pulled him up to his feet.

"Alec set off a crate full of breaching charges and flash-bang grenades, the blast knocked you and two of the Spec-Ops on your asses," Chellick said with a slight chuckle as he picked up and handed Bailey his assault rifle. Upon accepting it, Bailey began noticing the dozens of Human and Turian Marines helping the injured C-Sec agents move out into the alleyway, taking extra notice of a pair that were carrying an unconscious agent F'Loson out with them.

"Where did these come from?" Bailey asked as he watched several of the marines begin to advance deeper toward the center of the warehouse, sweeping their flashlights over the wreckage as they began searching for Alec.

"I had them on standby in case anything went wrong. Come on, Alec ran off toward the far end of the warehouse, if we move now we may catch up to him," Chellick answered as he quickly moved down the aisle-way after the other marines, Bailey dizzily following behind as he struggled to throw off the after effects of the flash bangs.

After a few seconds of moving around debris and toppled containers within the pitch-black shadows, the two lieutenants heard one of the Human marines call back to them.

"We got something up here sirs, you may want to come look at it." Increasing their pace, Bailey and Chellick came up behind the awaiting marines who were standing in a rough semi-circle around a large metal platform, one that appeared to be made up of interconnecting blocks similar in appearance to the ones that made up those strange mechanical insects. As they pushed their way through the marines, they noticed that their flashlights were illuminating several dozen electrical wires stretching overhead, having been pulled out of many of the support beams throughout the area and attached to the strange device situated in the center of the platform.

The entire scene looked like some kind of weird mad science project, with the wires and cables hanging around the group like a demented spider-web, connected to the odd device that was standing up out of a shallow pit.

Standing in front of the device, which slightly blocked it from view, was the Human marine that had announced the find earlier.

"What have you got son?" Bailey called up to the man as he and Chellick stopped at the foot of the platform. The marine spun around and stepped out of the way to allow the other two a better view, almost with excitement in his movements, while keeping the beam of his rifle's flashlight fixed on the device.

Chellick squinted to get a better look at what exactly this thing was. It appeared to be a large metal suit of some kind, made mostly out of a shiny silver material, with several overlapping layers of black going down the inside of the legs and arms, as well as the sides of the torso. The helmet had a very thin line going across the lower area where the mouth would be, along with two dark triangular eye sockets slanting downward slightly. Lowering his gaze, Chellick noticed a dark upside down triangle placed directly in the center of the suit's armoured chest plate, almost like a medallion of sorts.

"What in the names of the spirits is this thing?" Chellick asked mostly to himself as he continued to take in every detail of the advanced suit. Unexpectedly that was a question the marine seemed to have been dying to answer, for he jumped at the chance the moment the Turian finished.

"That's just it sir, I know what this is! It's the…" the marine began, when all of a sudden a bright white light flashed into existence, shining outward from the suit's triangular chest piece, as well as the menacing slanted eyes in its helmet!

As the marine spun around in alarm, the suit's left arm snapped upward, tearing off several of the attached electrical cables, and slammed a closed fisted punch straight into the man's armoured chest!  
The marine shouted out as the force of the strike sent him flying backwards off the platform, his body slamming into and knocking over several other marines as he landed. Quickly raising their guns, the two lieutenants and the rest of the marines yelled in surprise and began backing up. The large metal suit gave a synthetic rumble as it stumbled forward out of the shallow pit, ripping the rest of the cables from its body as it advanced on the group. After ripping off the last wire, the suit unceremoniously stepped off of the platform, denting the floor slightly as its heavy weight clanged down onto it.

Standing up to its full height, the suit's helmet slowly turned back and forth between the marines, its glowing white eyes showing now emotion as it sized each of them up.

"No. NonoNOOO!" a radio tinged voice suddenly yelled out from within the helmet, following immediately by the suit suddenly straightening up and standing rigidly at attention. A low humming sound began as the white light from the suit's eyes and chest piece began to flicker sporadically.

For a few seconds all was silent, the marines and lieutenants waiting with baited breath to see if the machine would do anything else. Finally Bailey spoke.

"Marine. You were about to tell us what the hell this thing is, I can already see that its some kind of suit," Bailey said as he and the others remained where they stood with their weapons trained on the seemingly malfunctioning device.

"It's more than that sir. This is the _Iron Man_ suit!" the marine explained from where he had landed, slightly cringing in pain from the damage done to his ribcage.

Bailey and Chellick frowned as they looked at each other.

"The _what?_"

**Continue on next chapter…**


	8. I am Iron Man? Part 2

**Chapter 7 continued.**

"Okay, _that_ hurt…" I groaned in pain through clenched teeth.

The suit's core had powered up to 100% without incident, but Haxon had detected some errors within the operating systems, as well as the general motor functions. Apparently the Replicators hadn't had enough time to re-configure everything before being ordered to begin work on _Alec's_ escape vehicle.

Now I was standing in a malfunctioning Iron Man suit (the one used by Robert Downey Jr. by the way) in front of several highly armed and probably pissed off Human and Turian marines, along with Bailey and Chellick.

Once the suit had powered up, I had quickly Mind Mended with it as per Alec's instructions and gained all the knowledge of how to properly control most of the basic systems, such as using the internal appliances and shooting with the powerful flight stabilizers built into the palms of the suit's hands. So naturally in my excitement and urgency, despite Haxon's warnings, I had decided to put what I had learned to the test before the A.I. could fix the before mentioned errors. I started this by ripping myself free of the electric wires and striking away the Alliance Marine that had been standing in front of me on the platform.

I had been wrong to doubt Alec; so far being inside the Iron Man suit was pretty damn awesome!

Casually walking forward, I was able to easily rip the remaining cables from the suit's hull, smiling widely at the super-enhanced strength the suit was now providing me. Strolling slowly toward the startled marines, I deliberately stepped down hard from the platform, letting the suit's heavy bulk slam down onto the floor for greater dramatic effect.

As I came to a stop, I activated several of the identification functions in the suit's helmet, causing an advanced targeting circle to pop up in front of my face and flick from marine to marine, sending scrolls of detailed information and holographic blueprints about their armours and weapons rising up to one side of my visual HUD.

I had been grinning madly as I began activating other systems within the suit, sending more screens and technical schematics flashing across the outer edges of the helmet's blue coloured vision screen.

Unfortunately that was when it had happened.  
"No. Nono, NO!" I said suddenly as the screens in front of my face began to flicker and disappear. Suddenly I hissed in pain as the suit automatically straightened up against my will, forcing my arms to their sides and my back to go as stiff as a board.

"Was that you?" I asked quietly through tight breaths to the darkness surrounding the suit's vision screen.

"_It was, I told you this would happen!"_ Haxon answered angrily.

"What exactly _did_ happen?" I asked as the A.I. began to repair the damage done to the internal systems, causing my flickering HUD to go back to normal, but still leaving me standing stock-still within the un-moving suit.

"_I had to place the suit into a type of armour-lock, since you clearly weren't listening to me, in order to finish my repairs to the motor functions and other things that weren't fully calibrated. The movements you just displayed didn't help the matter much, and it's probably going to set me back by a few seconds."  
_"How much time will you need?" I asked as I continued to eye Bailey and Chellick out of the corner of the HUD's vision.  
"_By working at maximum capacity, I believe I can get full functionality back in just a couple of minutes,"_ Haxon responded.

"A couple of minutes? Haxon, I don't think we have a couple of _seconds_, we need this thing back up to speed now!" I said quickly as several more systems began to come back to full power. As I spoke, a small box with a jagged line running through the center appeared in the far right corner of my HUD.

"_Axel what's the hold up? The Replicators have finished morphing into the ship, we're waiting on you to blast us a way out of here!"_ Alec's voice whispered through the speakers built into the helmet, causing the jagged line in the box to shift with each word.

"Yeah…we seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment," I answered sarcastically, only half concentrating on the Guardian as I began to look around the HUD, activating and initiating repair protocols on several of the effected systems so as to cut down on Haxon's needed time.

"Axel? Is that you in there?" Bailey's voice suddenly called over to me. Flicking my eyes to the lieutenant, I focused the circular targeting reticule on him and zoomed in until most of his head and torso were filling up my vision.  
"Uh, yeah Bailey I'm in here, how's it goin'?" I answered awkwardly offhand as I continued to search around the suit's HUD for anything else to repair.

"It looks like your gizmo's having a few problems," Bailey commented as he took a step closer to me, looking up and down my suit with caution but also fascination.

"It's a bit of a minor set-back I'll admit, but I'll be out of here in just a few moments," I said with a slight smile as I made the HUD zoom out and view all of the marines once again. Just then Chellick sternly barged forward, still keeping his weapon raised as he regarded the Iron Man suit.  
"That's not going to happen this time Axel. Please raise your hands where we can see them, and power down your weapon."

"Well you see Chellick, that's going to be a bit difficult for me…" I began.  
"Hey! Buttercup! Did you not hear the man? Turn off the suit, get out, and put your hands behind your head!" one of the Human marines barked at me in typical military Jarhead fashion.  
'_Never did like those guys,'_ I thought as I rolled my eyes.

"I CAN'T _MOVE!_" I barked back at the man.

"_Oh no!"_ Haxon stated in clear dread.

Suddenly the thrusters built into the bottoms of my armoured boots fired up, blasting out a strong glare of blue rocket flame along with a column of black smoke. I yelled out as I found myself all of a sudden blasting upward away from Bailey and the marines, shooting up from the floor past the first layers of support beams on my way to the ceiling one thousand feet above us!

"What did you do?!" I shouted to the A.I. as I strained to move my limbs, desperately trying but failing to break out of the suit's armour-lock.

"_I accidently engaged the thrusters, they're already firing at a 105% thrust capacity pre-set by the Replicators!"_ Haxon said quickly as the suit roughly scraped against a jutting storage platform.

"Did you at least finish the repairs?" I asked as I activated one of the sensors built into the suit, quickly taking a wide scan of the area overtop of us.

"_I just need another few seconds to complete the final system!"_ Haxon answered as he zipped through the remaining damage as fast as he could, pushing his modified abilities to the absolute max. As he did so, the results of the scan that I had just taken appeared in the corner of my HUD, showing an altitude meter capped off by a 1000-foot benchmark. On the meter there was also a rapidly rising silver triangle going up the side, showing off an enlarged three-digit number that indicated how far up in the air I had already flown.

"Haxon, would you mind taking off the armour-lock?" I asked once the triangle had reached 500 feet. But there was no answer from the A.I., the Iron Man suit remained firmly in lockdown as we continued to blast up toward the ceiling, whipping past more beams and platforms as we did.  
"Haxon, the armour-lock?" I asked again in a polite but tense tone as the triangle rose to 750 feet.

"_Almost there…"_ I heard him mutter, all of his concentration focused on the last repair job.

"I hate to rush you, but we're quickly running out of flight room!" I stated as the triangle rose to 875 feet. Another three seconds went by with the meter shooting up non-stop to 980 feet!

"HAXON!" I screeched, my muscles tensing as I braced myself for what seemed to be an inevitable impact with the roof.

"_Armour-lock dis-engaged!"_ the A.I. responded immediately. All around my body I could feel the suit's interlocking plates spread apart slightly, releasing themselves and freeing my limbs from their restraint. Without hesitation I jerked my head up, seeing the dark metal of the ceiling dimly light up from the bright white glow shining out from my helmet's eyes as I rapidly blasted up the last few feet toward it!

Acting with only a second to spare, I snapped up my arm and pointed my open palm toward the ceiling, activating the suit's iconic beam weapons built into its flight stabilizers. A quick high whine sounded out as the circular indent in my armoured hand lit up a bright blue before firing out a powerful blast of the same colour, impacting into the ceiling with a bright explosion of orange flame.

"Oh CRAAAP!" my voice screamed throughout the area as I shot up through the fiery blast hole, soaring out above the warehouse roof into the clear open space around the Presidium!

I was hyperventilating as I continued to skyrocket above the Citadel's hull, flexing both my wrists outward and activating the stabilizers in my hands. All around me I could feel the Iron Man giving off a steady humming vibration, particularly around my hands and feet where the suit's propulsion was coming from. Everything was running smoothly now.

I was just about to begin enjoying this brief flight when I suddenly used the HUD's targeting reticule to zoom in and identify a large Fast Transit Lane flashing back and forth over top of us, one that I was flying straight toward.

"Alright, we need to slow this down or I'm gonna run right into those vehicles," I said to Haxon as I turned my armoured head slightly, flicking between several systems within the HUD as I activated the thruster control.

"_I can decrease the thrusters' capacity slightly, but the Replicators designed the systems so that only you would have control over how fast or slow the suit flies."_

"Good, then lets give _this_ a try," I said after I brought up the power display for the thrusters, which was still sitting at around 105%. As I continued to fly closer to the high-speed Travel Lane, I began lowering the thrusters to more safer levels, beginning with 90%, and then continuing on to 70% when that showed little effect.

"_We will impact with the Travel Lane in the next thirteen seconds,"_ Haxon warned calmly.

"Come on, slow down, _slow down_," I commanded more forcefully to the HUD controls as the power levels continued to drop, now coming to 50%. But still, we continued to climb, blasting closer and closer to the whining cars and transports that whizzed across my field of vision.

"_Impact in seven seconds!"_ Haxon stated more forcefully, as if unsure if I had heard him the first time.  
"Come on, SLOW DOWN!" I ordered to the machine as I looked back up at the lane, putting in some extra force as I manipulated the controls.

Suddenly the power levels abruptly dropped to zero, with the bright blue flames coming from my palms and boots snuffing out at the same time!

"No! No I didn't mean _shut off!_" I shouted out to no one, my hands clawing uselessly through the air as I began to fall back down to the warehouse roof.

"_Just remember that this was _your_ fault and not mine this time!"_ Haxon shouted in off-handedly as I continued to fall.  
"Point taken!" I said before I shot the power back up to an instant 80% once I had fallen within fifteen feet of the polished roof, causing the stabilizers to re-fire violently. This also caused me to stop abruptly and blast back up into the air like I was on a bungee cord, making me yell in panic as my insides felt like they were driven down into my feet. Lowering the levels again and snapping both my palms out in front of me, I kept yelling as I was suddenly sent soaring backwards.

This continued on for several seconds, with me twisting and turning my arms and torso in different directions, causing the Iron Man suit to shoot back and forth in an erratic spiral!

"_I thought you already Mind Mended with this thing!"_ Haxon threw in after the thrusters began to sporadically discharge on and off as I tried to get the suit back under control.  
"The ring may have skimmed over a few things!" I shouted wobbly amidst my yelling as I continued to spin across the roof!

* * *

Bailey coughed as he waved a hand in front of his face, dispelling the fading column of smoke left behind by the Iron Man's boot thrusters.

"Damn. You got to admit, Axel's dramatic escapes are getting better each time," the future Captain commented to Chellick and the marines with an impressed smile, as they all looked up toward the tiny smoking hole in the ceiling far up above them, one that was letting in a dim beam of pale sunlight from the outside.

"We have to notify Pallin and the head of the Citadel Defense Perimeter, they need to know to have the Defense cannons on the lookout for a hostile craft flying within Presidium airspace," Chellick said as he brought up his arm and activated his omni-tool.

"While you're at it see if you can request any more air support, we may need star-fighters to chase Axel down," Bailey added in. As Chellick began to key in the needed information, a screen suddenly popped up off to the side, one that caused the Turian to cock his head in confusion after he read it.

"Someone else is already way ahead of us on that one Bailey, a dozen patrol cars along with three more Mantis gunships designated Echos 3,4, and 5 are on their way here now." This announcement caused Bailey to frown in suspicion.  
"On whose authority?"

Chellick typed in a few more commands before letting out an annoyed sigh as a small line of text appeared on his screen.

"Take a wild guess…" he answered glumly.

"HOLY FUCK!" One of the marines suddenly shouted in fright as he began stumbling backwards, his rifle raised and firing off random shots into the darkness around the Iron Man platform. Suddenly all of the marines began yelling in panic as they retreated backwards, some backing up and firing while others simply ran back to the blasted doorway. As Bailey and Chellick raised their weapons in search of what was causing the trained men to freak out, an enormous mechanical leg slammed down into the shelving wreckage off to their left, quickly being followed by another one coming into view on their right. As the two lieutenants flashed their lights onto the mechanical limbs, they saw that both legs were a silverish-grey colour, made up of millions of familiar interconnecting blocks.

Each leg was as large as a Subway car, both in thickness and in length, and was joined by six others connected to a massive octagonal body that had just crawled out overtop of the construction platform!

Even Chellick and Bailey were yelling now as they too began firing at the gigantic and monstrous mechanical Spider standing before them, both stumbling backwards as it began to take one floor shuddering step after another toward them.

As the two continued backing up, Bailey suddenly tripped over a small broken container and fell hard onto his back, his gun flying out of his hands. In a defiant act of courage, Chellick jumped in front of Bailey and unleashed the full fury of his assault rifle upon the giant Spider's body; loudly roaring out in what he thought would be his last act in the universe. As each thermal round impacted harmlessly into the frontal area of the machine, it suddenly came to a groaning halt, the sharp points on its two front legs slamming down into the ground and causing many pieces of loose debris to crash around it.

Chellick breathed deeply, his heart pumping wildly with adrenaline as he glared up at the 'face' of the Spider, the alarm on the side of his gun blaring loudly after having overheated. With a loud mechanical groaning noise, a blinding searchlight flashed down from the Spider onto the two lieutenants and whichever of the marines that had held their ground around them.

"Now what in all of space is _THIS_ thing?!" Chellick shouted angrily to anyone listening as he jabbed his index talon up at the machine. Grunting as he propped himself up on an elbow and using his other hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light shining on them, Bailey squinted as he quickly examined what he could see of the Spider's body.

"The horde of machines. Its gotta be that horde of machines we saw earlier, they must have somehow connected together the blocks in their bodies to make a single huge one," Bailey stated with realization as he looked over the millions of jagged metal blocks interconnected across the monster Spider's body.

Before anyone could question or respond to that, a slow and deliberate clapping sound could be hear echoing from farther back in the warehouse. The clapping continued for several seconds before the terrorist Alec suddenly stepped into the beams of light being directed at the Spider from the rifle-lights of the remaining marines. Crawling into view on either side near his feet were two of the smaller mechanical spiders, the one on the right being the red and silver one that the officers had seen earlier, while the one on the left was of the standard silvery grey like the others had been, although this one had thin wisps of smoke trailing off its body along with brief arcs of electricity zapping out across its limbs.

Standing on top of the Spider's broad back, the shape-shifting creature continued slowly clapping his gloved hands together in mock applause as he came to a stop at the very front edge of the Spider's body. (If any of you guys/girls have ever heard the Golf Clap, this was kind of a faster version of that!)  
Squinting further, Bailey could see a strap of roughly torn leather going across the Alec's armoured chest-plate, the ends of which were tightly wrapped around the butt and barrel of the modified Master Assault rifle he had been using during the brawl, allowing him to hang the weapon off his back.

"You would be correct sir! Bravo!" Alec announced with a wide grin as he swept a wide hand of indication down to Bailey before briefly resuming his clapping.  
"See, this is what I like about Bailey, despite his age he's as sharp as a razor, he can adapt and extrapolate at a moment's notice," Alec stated down to the remaining Turian and Human marines, snapping his fingers to better convey his final point.

"Excuse me?" Bailey demanded with a cocked eyebrow after hearing the age comment.

"Alec…" Chellick began demanding as he raised his own hand to shield his eyes from the searchlight.  
"And Chellick! Chellick…Chellick…" Alec began joyfully with a spreading of his arms as if expecting to receive a hug. But quickly his voice began to lower in pitch and spirit as his gaze settled on the Turian's face.

"Chellick hey, no hard feelings about the nose eh?" Alec asked awkwardly as he pointed to Chellick's blue blood-caked upper-lip and broken nose, along with the dark bruising that had formed around his eyes and nose afterwards. Chellick's lethal glare only intensified.  
"Now Chellick, in my opinion this guy was a completely under-used, under-valued character with tons of potential, who didn't get as much story content as he should have in the game," Alec remarked back to the assembled marines, his hand now indicating the Turian entirely.

"What are you talking about?" Bailey demanded in confusion as he stood to his feet, but apparently Alec felt that his time was now up.

"Well gentlemen you've been a great audience, so without further delay I bid you…WHOAAA!" Alec began with a bow when suddenly the giant Spider let out an enormous groan, shutting off its searchlight as it sprang up and shot into the air!

* * *

Propelling itself on hidden anti-gravity thrusters, the small scale Replicator Spider Ship curled all eight of its large legs in toward its belly and shot up into the air toward the ceiling with a mighty loud blast. Sending Alec, Polly, and Sparky all tumbling across the Spider's octagonal back, the three of them could only brace themselves as best they could as their bodies were flattened by the immense G-forces pressing down on them.

"Did you at least leave them the package?" Alec shouted over to Sparky as they all cringed and covered their heads or bodies with either their arms or pincer legs, trying their best to dodge from one side of the Spider's back to the other as the large Ship began to smash through support beams and platforms in its rough ascent. Out of the corner of his eye, Alec could just barely see Sparky quickly nod the front of his body up and down, answering an affirmative to the Guardian's last question.

* * *

"You're gonna have to make that _two_ hostile craft in Presidium airspace! C'mon, everyone out now!" Bailey yelled over to Chellick before shouting to the rest of the marines as large pieces of broken metal beams and jagged platforms began to rain down around them, quickly increasing in frequency as the flying Spider smashed through more and more of the warehouse on its way up to the roof.

"I think we've got another problem sir!" one of the marines shouted over as he pointed back to the Iron Man construction pad. Snapping their heads over to it, Chellick and Bailey's eyes instantly widened once they saw what had suddenly appeared on the front part of the platform.

It was a small rectangular device with a large glowing red digital display, with the numbers 00:10 visible on it!

"Move! NOW!" Bailey shouted as he and Chellick turned and dashed toward the blasted wall, the rest of the marines following shoulder to shoulder behind them after the display flicked to 00:09!

* * *

"_You're sure you've got it this time?"_ Haxon asked as I easily glided across the roof, having mastered a quick system for controlling the thrusters' power and learning the proper movements needed for effectively using my hands and feet to steer the suit.

"Yeah, I think so…whoa!" I said before accidentally causing the power levels to briefly spike another 10%, which caused the thrusters to fire out a large puff of flame as I shot up a few feet into the air before falling back down to the previous height I had been hovering at before.

"_You're _positive _about that?"_ the A.I. stressed. Smiling smugly, I shot the thrusters up to 80% again and soared back overtop of the blasted hole I had flown through earlier, quickly activating a system I had discovered within the HUD used for capping off the thrusters' acceleration, allowing me to simply hover in the air once again. Taking a casual look around my surroundings in a dramatic Iron Man pose, I gave an obvious nod of confidence.

"Oh yeah, I can fly," I answered coolly, my smile increasing slightly as I mirrored Tony Stark's words after he had successfully flown for the first time.

"HOLD ON TO YOUR METAL BRITCHES BOYS, THIS IS GONNA HURT!" a familiar voice suddenly shouted out from the hole, immediately being followed by a tremendous crashing slam and a gut wrenching metallic tearing sound.

Suddenly a massive section of the roof ripped open outwards from the center of the blast hole!

(They needed _me_ to blast _them_ a way out? Hmmmm, blasting open a structural weakness I guess)

Yelling in surprise, I flexed my hands and feet to redirect the suit's stabilizers, flying out of the way as the gigantic but small scale Spider Ship Alec had been talking about earlier heavily blasted up through the air before stopping where I had been hovering a second ago. The ship was laced with pieces of debris that it had picked up on its way here, with the top of its back being covered in large jagged sections of the roof that it had just smashed through.

"Wow," I said in amazement as I looked over the giant floating Spider, the targeting reticule in my HUD going haywire as it began automatically probing the different sections of the ship, bringing up screens filled with technical readouts and capabilities that I was nowhere near qualified to begin reading.

"_No offense Axel, your timely escapes are good, but Alec's entrances are _fantastic_,"_ Haxon stated as he too looked over the ship in awe.

The giant Spider let out a metallic groan that echoed across the area as it uncurled its eight great legs from the center of its body, slowly turning itself around until its front was facing toward me.

(Considering the size of this thing, it was actually a little intimidating to be staring a giant Replicator dead in the face)

Just then, as I flew up a little higher to look over the Ship's large octagonal back, the advanced audio sensors built into my helmet began picking up a faint wheezing sound, like that of a person not getting enough air into their lungs. Sweeping my targeting reticule across the Spider, I quickly noticed one of the large pieces of roof debris slowly getting pushed up off of it.

Flying over, I deactivated the thrusters and landed in a crouch on top of the Spider, quickly stepping over more debris as I crossed over toward the source of the wheezing. After coming up to the moving piece of roofing, I grabbed hold of the jagged metal and used the Iron Man's super strength to easily lift it up and cast it over the side of the Ship.

"I gotta say, you've looked better," I said after making my helmet's face-plate lift up to show off my real face, giving an amused chuckle as I looked down on a wheezing Alec, who at the moment was laying on his back with an equally pained Polly and Sparky flattened against his chest.

"I have felt better too. By the way you look taller in that suit," Alec wheezed painfully, before immediately commenting in his usual tone as he grabbed onto the hand that I was offering and pulled himself up to his feet. As the Guardian leaned forward with his hands on his knees, still reeling from the experience of having been crushed against a roof, the sound of a massive explosion suddenly rumbled out around us. Frowning as I moved to and leaned over the edge of the Spider Ship, I could see the orange glow of a large fire-ball quickly fading away down on the warehouse floor far below.

"Alec?" I demanded slowly, a look of expectancy on my face as I pointed down to the explosion.

"It was merely insurance," Alec defended casually as he stood up and twisted his torso from side to side, cracking several vertebrae in his spine.

"Insurance? We already escaped, why did you need to blow up the warehouse?!" I demanded again as I gestured angrily down to the column of black smoke that was beginning to rise up out of the large hole the Spider Ship had made.

"Axel, just by being here we've already messed up the original time-line of Mass Effect in ways we can't even imagine! You're standing in a functioning Iron Man suit created with Mass Effect materials using Replicator technology! If the Council had gotten their hands on the construction platform back down there, do you believe they would think twice if they found a way to make _another_ suit from it? Or worse, find a way to reverse engineer the platform's technology to create a single Replicator spider that wasn't under your control? The Asgard thought they could handle these guys and they got absolutely crushed, I'm willing to bet my immortality that the Mass Effect races would barely last half as long as they did if one of these guys somehow escaped," Alec explained as he indicated the recovering Polly and Sparky at his feet.

I was stunned by those points, letting out a sigh of defeat as they sunk into me. Alec was right, the technologies we were using here weren't meant to be in this universe, and would only create dire consequences if they ever found their ways into the hands of those who would use them to settle old scores or expand their influence against the other races of Mass Effect. (A.K.A. The Illusive Man or the Krogan, amongst others)

"But still, Bailey and Chellick were standing right in front of that platform! Couldn't you have forced them to leave before you blew up the whole area?" I asked after a brief moment of considering his previous words.

"Come on, this is Bailey and Chellick we're talking about here, do you really think a little bomb is going to stop them. I am…95% certain, they got out of there in time," Alec answered matter-of-factly, although I did notice that he said the percentage rather quickly before finishing his statement.

"I hate to ask, but what is the other 5%?"

Alec's face dropped into a slightly awkward expression.

"Ah, w-well…there is always a margin for error," he answered with a half shrug.

Suddenly the wail of police sirens echoed out all around us, along with the rumbling mechanical humming sounds generated by the repulsors of Mantis gunships. As we recognized these, Polly and Sparky began hissing angrily, while they, Alec, and I all quickly stood or crawled back to back, the Guardian drawing my activated Super-rifle from its makeshift leather strap, while I made the Iron Man's faceplate slide down and re-seal with the rest of the helmet, surrounding my eyes and face with the suit's glowing blue HUD once again.

As we did this, several dozen deep blue C-Sec patrol cars sped into view from out of the Fast Travel Lane over top of us, or from around the corners of nearby towers and spires sticking up out of the Presidium's hull. All of them came to a dead hover in a circle around the Replicator Spider Ship, each car shutting down their sirens but keeping their blue and red flashing lights on. Following behind these were three more jet-black Mantis gunships, all of who seemed to be keeping their main guns focused on Alec in particular as they joined the circle. At the sight of the hostile craft surrounding it, the giant Spider Ship began to slowly turn back and forth, letting out a deep threatening growl as it regarded each vehicle.

"Easy boy, easy," I uttered down to the Spider as I powered up the stabilizers in my hands, sending out a deep blue glow as the weapons became armed. As the tense standoff continued, I suddenly felt a set of knuckles knock against the back of one of my armoured shoulder-plates.

"SEE! If Chellick and Bailey hadn't gotten out of there, who'd have taken the time to call in these things after us?!" Alec announced joyfully with a wide grin as he pointed the barrel of the Super-rifle up to the cannons being trained on us.

"_This is Agent Ciatra F'Loson! For the final time, you are under arrest!" _

"Ah…" I said in mock recognition as we both turned to the gunship the Executor's liaison had barked out from using its loudspeaker.

"I shot that lady _twice_. Not once but _twice_," Alec stated with a sigh of annoyance as he held up two fingers.

"_Executor Pallin isn't as picky about you dying as Bailey and Chellick are, if you two do not desist in this reckless jaunt across the Citadel we will use lethal force from this point on,"_ F'Loson stated angrily. "This doesn't change anything, I'm still convinced that Bailey and Chellick made it out of there with plenty of time to spare," Alec insisted back to me as he brought the scope of my weapon up to his eye.

"Even if they did, I doubt they could talk her out of blasting us from the sky now," I answered after my HUD had taken a quick scan of F'Loson's gunship, zeroing in on her ship's targeting sensors.

"Well, now that we have the Replicators on our side, and a functioning Iron Man suit to boot, what say we get back to the original plan," I said over my shoulder to Alec, mimicking the cheery tone he had always used in moment's like this.

"This would be the plan where we evade C-Sec, head back to the ship, and launch it without getting caught when Shepard leaves the station right?" Alec listed over to me while still keeping his eye close to the scope of my rifle.

"Mostly, but with these many pursuers on us we're going to need to take a little detour for a while, just so that we know when exactly we need to leave the station," I answered as I began activating several of the suit's secondary armaments, while making the HUD's circular reticule split into three and target each of the Mantises simultaneously. "And where exactly would this detour be taking us?" Alec asked.

"To Shepard…" I said with a knowing smile as I straightened my arms and flexed my wrists, launching a dozen feet into the air as the stabilizers/thrusters on my hands and feet fired.

"What? I thought the _general_ plan was to stay away from him unless he needed help!" Alec blurted out as he looked up to me. Hovering in the air above the Spider Ship and the Guardian, I turned toward a large expanse of towers and spires, blocked off at the moment by two of the C-Sec cars, with the large curving edge of the Presidium Ring stretching far out behind them. Just a little ways off to the left, the Citadel Tower reached up thousands of feet into the air, shining a blinding silvery white from the brilliant radiance of Widow's noon hour rays.

"Just follow me when you get the signal. And don't worry, I have a plan _within_ our plan!" I announced dramatically with a grin, quickly doing a check up on all of the suit's flight systems through the HUD's interface.

"_I assume that this new plan you have for getting us out of here is to simply_ 'Run like hell'_?"_ Haxon inquired. I gave a short chuckle as I brought up the power levels for the thrusters once again, tensing my muscles in readiness.

"Not exactly, more like '_Fly_ like hell', I wanna see what this baby can do." I could hear the A.I. blow out an audible sigh of defeat, earning a cocked eyebrow from me since I hadn't thought they could actually do that, being without lungs and…_air_, and all that stuff.

"_Preparing to initiate the _'Fly like hell' _maneuver."_ Smiling again, I opened a radio channel to Forsenski's omni-tool. "You guys ready?" I asked the Guardian. "_I guess so. What about all these guns being pointed at us?"_ Alec's voice asked quickly. Flicking my eyes to the three targeting reticules still locked onto the sensor systems for the Mantises, I made the reticules pulse red.

"Haxon, deploy flares and smoke screens!"

Immediately a small circular section of the suit extended outwards from the sides of both of my legs, each of them firing out a huge cluster of smoking dart shaped missiles!

One of the clusters shot out in a wide radius, each missile exploding in a huge swirl of obscuring white smoke in front of the surrounding patrol cars. The second cluster broke off into three groups, each group shooting toward and impacting into the sides of the targeted Mantises, causing bright explosions of red flame and sparks almost like fireworks!

The pilots within the cockpits of each gunship yelled out as more sparks shot up from their holographic consoles, the screens used to control the sights of their main cannons disappearing into flickering lines of static.

"_All targets have been temporarily blinded!"_ Haxon reported.

"Then lets let this thing rip!" I said immediately as I fired up the thrusters to their maximum 400%!

Right away I almost came to regret doing that, for my eyes widened and my vision blurred for a brief second. I felt lightheaded and extremely heavy for a moment before the suit's motion dampeners kicked in, the thrusters suddenly blasting me forward at rocketing speeds!

I screamed as a massive kick of force, coupled with a roaring jet of smoke and blue flame shot out of my boots. I blasted straight through the smoke screen I had fired ahead of us, cutting in between the two C-sec cars that had been waiting to stop me, causing them to shake violently in the powerful wake of my passing.

I continued yelling, but this time it was now in pure excitement and adrenaline as the forces pressing in on me ceased. The display on the HUD changed to one similar to those used in fighter jets, showing off my speed, altitude, weapons, any kind of wind direction, and lining up the Horizon Line with the top of the Presidium Ring.

"WAAAA HOOOO!" I shouted in joy as I brought the suit into a speeding barrel roll, arcing around the mid-section of one of the taller on-coming spires set up in front of me!

Farther back, Alec was still watching my rapidly shrinking form with a wide grin on his face.  
"Oh Yeah! I am _awesome_ for thinking of this!" the Guardian remarked proudly on the success of the suit, thrusting up his arm holding the Super-rifle in victory. Just then Forsenski's omni-tool re-appeared around his forearm, with the very pissed off voice of agent F'Loson hissing through it.

"_We've lost visual on suspects, reconfiguring senor systems. Retarget that bastard Alec and take him out!"_

As the Asari said this, the three Mantises rose up out of the dissipating smoke screen, their guns quickly re-aiming on Alec and the Replicators.

"Right…" Alec said slowly as he looked from ship to ship, quickly taking the leather strap wrapped around either end of the Super-rifle and slinging it across his chest onto his back. "Okay big guy, you heard what Axel said. Andiamo!" Alec said down to the Spider Ship before suddenly straightening up and pointing after me, shouting the final word in Italian.

There was a long pause of silence, with Alec standing frozen in his pose with his devilish smile plastered across his face. (There's them crickets again)

As the three Mantises began zooming in and targeting Alec directly, the Guardian kept up his smile as he cast his eyes down to Polly and Sparky, who were both silently looking up at him as if confused.

"Andiamo?" Alec asked down to the back of the Spider, which still gave no response as it continued to hover in mid-air.  
"Avanti!" he ordered, trying another Italian word as he straightened up again. Still, no response.

"Charge…Mush…GO!" Alec began ordering to the Ship, each with no effect, all the while tensely looking up at the Mantises' main cannons, which had now begun to glow orange.  
"Oh for crying out loud, _follow him_ please!" the Guardian asked in defeat, half waiting for the gunships to shred through him. But at that moment the Spider let out a huge metallic cry as it curled its eight legs in toward its chest and blasted forward, causing Alec to yell out as he tumbled and rolled backwards from the sudden force!

F'Loson and her Mantises immediately began firing their weapons, the gunships' main cannons spitting out violent streams of thermal rounds while the launchers on their rooves began unleashing volleys of missiles. But the advanced Replicator Ship easily outmaneuvered them, banking its body from one side to the other to avoid the flaming rockets, while its surging speed allowed it to stay one step ahead of the piercing lines of fire.

The C-Sec agents at the controls of several patrol cars shouted in panic as they scrambled to move their vehicles out of the way, the gigantic Spider not slowing down for a second as it screamed past them. A massive blast of wind followed in its wake, causing the hyperventilating agents to brace themselves once again as their vehicles were rocked violently. However, just as the agents began blowing out sighs of relief, their cars were rocked AGAIN as F'Loson and the two Mantises flanking her shot past, followed by the rest of the patrol cars as they activated their sirens and sped off in rapid pursuit of the alien craft.

Alec was screaming at the top of his lungs as he extended and dug the talons on his free hand into the Spider's back, holding on tightly as the movements and air currents generated by the Ship began lifting and thrashing his body from side to side through the air!

"Maybe this was a bad idea!" Alec screamed down to Polly and Sparky who were latched on ahead of him by their front legs, the back halves of their bodies also thrashing around uncontrollably.

* * *

Several kilometers away, a large tower rose up amongst the hundreds of others that dotted the Presidium's outer hull. At the top of this was a large curving observation dome, made by the Council for public use so that civilians and families could enjoy a breathtaking view of the Citadel's exterior.

At the moment the inside of this dome was half filled with families of various races, mothers and fathers sitting on benches with their children or enjoying conversation with other parents.

At the moment a Human woman was sitting on one of these benches with a young boy and girl on each side of her, letting her children direct her left arm so as to take pictures of the Citadel with her activated omni-tool.

Suddenly, after taking a snap shot of the Citadel Tower, the little girl noticed something on the tool's screen after the boy had pulled it over to the side slightly.

"Mommy, what's that?" the girl asked immediately as she pointed one of her short fingers to the moving image on the screen. Frowning, the mother magnified the image slightly to get a better view of the object, but didn't have to go very far since it appeared to by flying straight toward the tower. Lifting her gaze up to look out through the glass dome, the mother quickly noticed the object her daughter had seen, along with several dozen other objects following close behind it. At first they were only little black dots against the brilliant white clouds of the Serpent Nebula, each of them sharply curving around the spires set up in their path. As the seconds went by however, they got bigger and bigger, as well as more detailed. Soon everyone in the dome began taking notice of the approaching objects, especially the particularly massive one that appeared to be in the shape of a solid octagon.

Suddenly everyone screamed and ducked their heads as some kind of flying silver man blasted up past the dome, having gone un-noticed by the group since he had been flying close to the hull of the Presidium before deciding to climb higher into the air!

The crowd screamed again as the massive flying object, which appeared to be a huge metal spider, flew past them in pursuit of the this man. What caused everyone to really watch the machine in astonishment was when it banked to the side, curving around the edge of the dome to avoid smashing into it. As it did this, the group got a good view of a young blonde man holding on to the spider's back with one hand, his body swinging wildly about from the force of the wind of the Presidium's atmosphere bubble being slammed against him.

"Hi people! Nice day huh?!" the man turned and yelled over to them as the spider whipped past, kindly waving out his free to them.

A few seconds after he passed, the entire dome shook from the force of three A-61 Mantis gunships along with several dozen siren wailing C-Sec patrol cars zooming after them in a high-speed chase!

* * *

"Hahahahahahahaha!" I laughed hysterically as I continued to fly the Iron Man in arcing spirals, banking around spires, diving below bridge ways, or acrobatically avoiding any Fast Travel Lanes that crisscrossed in front of me.

Farther back I could tell that Alec and the Spider Ship had caught up with me, judging by the wail of police sirens and the periodic discharge of thermal rounds that harmlessly flew past from the three gunships. Unfortunately, while I was able to gracefully weave around the bodies of spires and other buildings in my way, the Spider Ship was loudly scraping by or smashing through corners as it tried to follow me, its large bulk making tight turning maneuvers difficult.

"WWOOOOOO!" I shouted again in pure teenager like bliss as I spun onto my back, flying upside down along the Presidium Ring with the hull shooting overtop of my head. Suddenly another shout was added to my voice, only this one was one of tense fright, and it wasn't coming from me.

"_I take it someone's enjoying the new toy!" _Alec's muffled voice screamed over the radio channel that I had left open between us, his words being mixed with a deep rumbling and cannon fire.

"Handles like a dream! I should have joined the Air-Force!" I responded loudly with another excited laugh as I flipped back onto my stomach, sharply pulling up higher in the air to avoid Kamikazeing into an exposed construction project sticking out of the hull. I cringed when a gigantic crash suddenly accompanied me, the Spider having smashed through one of the anti-gravity cranes that had been set up around the site. Luckily it didn't appear as if anyone had been working there today, at least from what I had seen.

"_I don't know about you Axel, but I think we're running a bit of a risk flying out in the open like this," _Alec said through the radio. Before I could say anything in response, a secondary radio link entered into the suit's HUD from Forsenski's omni-tool.

"_You're nearing the center of the Embassy District, which street are they on?"_ an un-familiar male voice suddenly asked through the speakers in my helmet, his tone showing that he was directing the question at someone else.

"_They're not _on_ a street, they're skimming over the hull! One is operating an unknown craft while the other is _surfing_ on a _GIANT METAL SPIDER!_ I want the Defense cannons on them now!"_ agent F'Loson's voice screeched in my ear like the cry of an enraged Irish Banshee, her transmissions being re-routed to me through Alec's stolen omni-tool.  
"_The Citadel's targeting computers can't get a lock on Axel ma'am, whatever he's flying is too small for the system to even consider as a ship,"_ the voice on the other end responded tensely, as if he were trying to get that said lock on me right now!

"_He's in a _suit_! If you can't lock on him then fix a lock on the spider!" _There was a short pause before a muffled commotion could be heard on the man's end, quickly finishing with another voice answering the radio.

"_You're too close to the hull F'Loson! I am _not_ ordering the station's ship-batteries to fire within that margin of error!"_ This voice was deeper and more gravely in tone, sounding almost Turian. This new man was probably the one in charge of the Citadel's defense systems.

As F'Loson continued to bicker back and forth with the Turian, I brought the radio channel between Alec and I back online as I banked hard around another tower.

"Are you really surfing on top of the Spider Ship?" I asked the Guardian in mild amusement as the Spider followed close behind me.

* * *

Farther back Alec was indeed standing upright on the Spider's back almost like a surfer, but at the moment his body itself was upside down!

Having had to dodge an incoming missile from one of the pursuing gunships, the Spider Ship had flipped itself around so that its backside was facing down toward the Presidium's hull, while its legs extended up toward the clouds of the Nebula above it. This had caused both Sparky and Polly to spring forward and wrap their front legs around each ankle of a shouting Alec as he lost his grip and fell from the Spider's body!

Now the smaller Replicators were screeching in protest as they strained to keep their rear legs connected to the frame of their larger sibling, all while holding on to the stunned upside down Guardian as he swung from side to side in the wind, deeply frowning in confusion as he awkwardly glanced around at the new perspective of his surroundings.

"Uhhhhhhh…not exactly. The Replicators and I seem to have developed a new method for riding on the back of the large flying arachnid," Alec answered calmly into the still active omni-tool around his trailing left arm. Polly gave an angry screech at the Guardian as the machine's grip around his jackboot began to slip.

"I _know_ Tin-Can! This method _does_ suck! Why don't you tell your big brother to straighten himself out before we all die!" Alec shouted up to the Replicator in half sarcasm half annoyance, deliberately making up his own translation for what Polly had said to better convey his feelings about hanging upside down during a high speed air chase!

Suddenly Sparky let out a high-pitched cry as he experienced one of his periodic electrical spasms. But it didn't stop there, for as the arc of electricity travelled down the spider's legs, it struck into the body of the Spider Ship. This caused the enormous Replicator to give out a loud rumbling growl before turning over back onto its stomach, sending Alec and the two spiders screaming through the air as they travelled with it.

* * *

"Alec? Alec are you still there?" I asked through the suit's radio link after hearing he and the others crash into something. There was a short pause before a coughing sound came from the other end.

"_Yeah we're still here, just had a slight mishap,"_ Alec responded, right before another loud explosion from one of the gunships' missiles screamed through the speakers. "_Although we _are_ still getting shot at. Have we come up with a plan for ditching these guys and finding Shepard?" _I winced slightly as he brought that up. "I have thought of something, but you're not going to like it." There were more explosions and gunfire before the Guardian answered.

"_Try me, anything's gotta be better than this!"_

"The station's defenses can't lock on to me, which means I can get to Shepard without being tracked," I stated.  
"_That's only so long as C-Sec's entire patrol fleet isn't chasing you down while you…_wait a minute_…"_ Alec began when suddenly the foreboding realization of what I was saying hit him.

"Alec, I need you to stay out in the open and keep the heat off me, otherwise I'm never going to find Shepard without an army of agents breathing down my neck," I began urgently, half bracing myself for the Guardian's reaction.

(...)

"_Keep them off you?"_ Alec finally asked, almost in a deliberately calm tone after a long and awkwardly drawn out silence.  
"Yes…" I answered hesitantly, still bracing myself.  
"_Make ourselves a moving target?"_ he asked.  
"Yeah…" I answered again in the same manner.  
"_Create disturbances, make them angry, provoke them into sending everything they've got after us, right?"_ I gave a deep sigh as the Guardian continued to probe the situation in his carefully level voice.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm asking you to do…"

"_Even though it is technically my job as your Guardian, I've noticed that I'm slowly, GETTING TURNED INTO A _LIVING MEAT SHIELD_ DURING THIS QUEST!"_

"Hey, by all means I'll take your place! I'm perfectly willing to stay up here and keep F'Loson's attention. While you take your giant spider and jaunt across the Citadel looking for one man, all while trying to stay completely inconspicuous, and at the same time trying not to screw up Mass Effect anymore than we already have. Because you know, with all the damage we've been causing lately we could very well be setting the stage up for Saren to complete his mission, thereby sealing the deaths of trillions…" I stated matter-of-factly in a perturbed voice. But Alec answered immediately in an even more cheery and comedic tone than usual, which was in stark contrast to the anger he had displayed just a second ago.

"_Which is exactly why, as your Guardian, I _volunteer_ to stay up here and continue getting shot at for you! Have no fear partner, we'll keep them off your back while _you_ go and find Shepard!" _

"Thanks, I won't forget it. If we finally get off this damn station in one piece the first round's on me," I rolled my eyes with a scoff, quickly glancing over toward the Citadel Tower far off on my left side.  
"_In that case make it a double bourbon,"_ Alec said, the sound of my Super-rifle being activated coming through the helmets speakers. Tensing my hands and muscles in readiness, I gave a short nod.

"Deal. See you guys when I get back!" With that I pulled the Iron Man into a wide arcing barrel roll to the left, branching away from the Presidium Ring just as we neared the narrower radial section of the Embassy District that extended inward from the Ring's circumference and connected with the base of the Tower in the center!

* * *

As Axel broke away from the chase, back on the Spider Alec spread his feet farther apart, bracing himself as best as he could to stay firmly attached to the Ship's backside similar to how he had done on the roof of Irwin's hover car. Looking up at the pursuing Mantises and the long procession of patrol cars that followed behind them, the Guardian grinned like an insane man as he hefted up the Super Assault-rifle in one hand and used the other to draw one of Jango's blaster pistols from his belt.

"Alright guys, show these cops what you're made of. But remember, _no killing,_" Alec said down to Polly, Sparky, and the Replicator Ship. After receiving a series of nods from the two smaller spiders, and a deep rumble from the core of the Ship, he turned back up to the C-Sec vehicles with his mad grin still on his face.

"Remember my name! And it is _not_ Earl!" Alec shouted out defiantly as he raised the pistol and rifle and began firing up at the gunships, clicking the button on the pistol that set it to full-automatic while making the rifle rounds go to their highest settings.

As he did this, Polly and Sparky screeched angrily as they morphed their legs with the blocks that made up the Spider's back, creating small cannon barrels that formed against their bellies. Suddenly rapid blasts of blue light began to fire out from these barrels, while Polly and Sparky continuing to squawk their own Replicator insults up at the C-Sec craft as they swiveled from left to right, firing on the vehicles at will!

Underneath the trio, the Spider Ship re-positioned a few hundred of the blocks that made up its rear, breaking them apart and forming them into two jutting spikes. After these had been formed they fired off from the Ship's body, shooting up at the gunships like two anti-aircraft missiles, each being propelled on a stream of blue flame and black smoke.

"_Holy crap! Incoming!"_ one of the pilots' voices shouted out from Alec's omni-tool.

"_All craft, evasive maneuvers!"_ F'Loson ordered immediately. As the two missiles flew within striking range, the three Mantises and the rest of the trailing patrol cars all scattered outward like a massive swarm of insects, allowing the projectiles to streak past them and explode farther behind.

"_All units, focus your attention on the Spider! Neutralize those weapons!"_ another pilot added in, his order soon being followed by the gunships opening fire once again. This time however it wasn't just the gunships firing, several of the windows on the patrol cars began to slide down, allowing their occupants to lean out and begin shooting pistols or assault rifles down on the Ship as well!

"_Keep on them! I'm changing course!"_ F'Loson commanded to the other vehicles as she suddenly made her gunship veer off from the main group.

"Changing course?...Aw crap," Alec questioned out loud in confusion before tracking the direction the splitting Mantis was headed in, uttering the final curse word once he saw the vehicle begin blasting over toward the Citadel Tower.

* * *

The Iron Man shot through the air, flying straight and true above the narrow stretch of the Presidium that connected to the Tower. As I continued to fly the suit I asked Haxon to begin searching through any Human Embassy data-bases that he could find, telling him to set his search parameters to find any mention of Commander Shepard's whereabouts or if there was any pre-set time before the _SSV Normandy_ would depart from the station.

"_If what you say is true and Shepard _is_ a candidate to be the first Human Spectre, any information on his current location could be highly classified,"_ the A.I. stated after he had begun sifting through the information.

"He isn't a Spectre yet, and he won't be until he gets the evidence he needs to pin the Eden Prime attack on Saren," I answered with a slight pant of exhaustion as I weaved around a pair of guard-towers set high above the Embassy Walkway.

"_I still have no idea how you or Alec _know_ what is about to happen in the next hour. All I _do_ know is that you two aren't from this galaxy, and yet you somehow know everything about it,"_ Haxon said offhand as he worked. I gave a short breath.

"And right now I can't tell you how we know Haxon. Once we make it off the Citadel with the information we need I swear I'll tell you the whole damn story, but for the moment I need you to trust us and just go with it for the time being." Suddenly the suit's radio link opened up again.

"_Axel, you guy's got a bit of a problem headed your way!"_ Alec's voice called to me amidst the chaos he was causing on his end. Before I could say a word, a blinking red dot appeared on my HUD.

"_Hostile Mantis incoming!"_ Haxon warned. Suddenly several smaller red dots shot out from the original, all of them shooting right towards me!  
Baring my teeth, I quickly repositioned my hands and feet, sending the suit into an arcing high speed ballet of twists and turns as a series of missiles and thermal rounds shot past me.

"Let me guess. F'Loson right?" I asked as the tell tale sound of Mantis repulsors shot out behind me, showing that the attacking gunship was hot on my tail.  
"_Yeah, we managed to stir up the rest of the hornet's nest but F'Loson didn't buy into it, she B-lined straight for you before we could do anything,"_ Alec explained.  
"Don't sweat it, I can handle her. Just keep the rest of the rest of the Defense-Fleet off me."

"_Will do. Take pictures!"_ Alec responded before severing the radio link between us. After he did that I pulled up the secondary link that Alec had used to connect me to F'Loson and the Citadel Defense operator.

"…_Re-adjusting to compensate. Set the next salvo of rounds to maximum power."_ As I picked up on the liaison's un-knowing transmission, I looked straight ahead toward the Tower, glancing up to its peek. The entire structure loomed up over top of us like a mountain, reaching far up toward the deep blue and white expanse that surrounded the Citadel, on to the deep endlessness of outer space.

'_Outer space…'_ I thought suddenly, an idea coming to mind.

"Alright F'Loson, lets see how good of a pilot you are with that thing," I said slyly to myself as I activated several of the Iron Man's flight systems. "_You're not that great of a pilot with_ this _thing!"_ Haxon commented once he saw what I was doing with the thrusters.

"Well then it'll be a learning experience for both of us, COME ON!" I answered loudly before boosting several systems and shooting the suit's boot thrusters up to 440%!

I cringed as G-forces briefly pressed in on me, the Iron Man blasting forward three times faster then it had a second ago. Over the radio channel I could hear F'Loson's sudden statement of surprise as she and her co-pilot adjusted the Mantis's thrusters to catch up to me.

"_Fire everything we've got!"_ Immediately the buzz of the gunship's main cannon screamed out behind me, sending many orange superheated rounds whizzing over and around the vision in my HUD as I began spiraling through the air to evade the lines of fire.

After a few seconds I shouted out as a dull pain flared up in my back muscles and shoulders, the suit briefly rocking as several of F'Loson's thermal rounds ricocheted off my armour plating.

"_Minimal damage, the suit has not been compromised,"_ Haxon reported. I winced slightly from the bruising I was surely developing as I kept up my evasive maneuvers, ducking and weaving out of the gunship's sights. "This thing was built with ship materials remember. If there's one thing I know about the Replicators, its that they don't take shortcuts on their work," I said.

"_Launch missiles 4 and 7!"_ F'Loson's voice suddenly commanded.

"_I hope their work can stand up against a rocket,"_ the A.I. added in. Grinding my teeth after hearing the missiles blast out from their launchers, I spun around onto my back while still flying forward, lifting my torso up into a semi-sitting position and extending both my arms forward with my palms still open.

As the two missiles streaked towards me, a familiar loud whine sounded out as a deep blue glow brightened up from my hands. Within a second two blasts of blue energy fired out from the stabilizers in my palms, striking into the head of each missile and causing them to explode in a massive fireball!

"_We've got an incoming tower!"_ Haxon warned. Snapping my body back into its previous flight position, I yelled in surprise as I jerked the suit into a wobbly arcing maneuver around another security tower that I was flying into. As I did this, I could see F'Loson bank her gunship around the tower's other side, coming back up behind me as we both straightened ourselves out.

"_Prime and then fire missiles 5 through 9!"_ the Asari ordered again. We were now nearing the massive base of the Tower, shooting over the last of the open Embassy Walkway before it began tunneling into the base itself.

"Try this on for size lady," I said through gritted teeth before firing the thrusters up to _500%_!

I braced myself again as we blasted forward at near bone-crushing speeds, a resounding _whump!_ following after me as the suit's boot thrusters sent out a massive blast of flame.

"_Bogie just went super-sonic! At maximum speeds we'll barely keep up with him!"_ F'Loson's co-pilot reported within range of her microphone.

"_We are not losing this man, match our speed as best as possible!"_ As the liaison ordered this, her gunship's repulsors began to give out wisps of black smoke after they kicked into overdrive, allowing the gunship to remain close behind me, but at the same time causing it to shake and groan loudly from the stress being put on it.

"_There _is_ still a giant tower in front of us!"_ Haxon pointed out over the loud turbine like rumbling that was vibrating throughout the suit.

"Yeah I know," I gritted as I strained against the forces being pressed against my body from our recent acceleration. It was an exhilarating moment, despite the strain I was enduring and the determined attacker still on our tail; this was my first time traveling faster than the speed of sound!

"_So you may want to pull up some time soon,"_ Haxon suggested quickly.

"Yeah_ I know!_" I bit out again as I began to maneuver the suit into doing just that. But the gravity pressing on me was astounding, how Stark managed to fly this thing at these speeds was beyond me.

"_Axel?"_ Haxon asked tensely as the wall of the massive Tower filled up my HUD's vision. Both of us soon began yelling out as I blasted straight into the wall, just managing to sharply pull the suit up at the last split second and shoot onward toward the Tower's peek, the front of the Iron Man's chest plate scraping against the hull for a few seconds as I struggled to keep control.

"_This guy's insane! I might buy him a drink after this,"_ F'Loson's co-pilot commented with a laugh in the background.

I made a face as I cringed in effort, dodging from side to side to avoid any platforms or communication antennas jutting out from the Tower as we skimmed up its hull. Just as I had been counting on, F'Loson was still in close pursuit as she pulled the Mantis into a steep climb, putting the gunship's repulsors under even greater strain while trying to match my movements on our way up to the top.

"_You do have another plan for getting us out of this, right?"_ Haxon asked still in a tense voice after I dodged around another antenna, which was immediately smashed apart as the Mantis flew through it.

"Remember when I said this thing was built with ship materials, that means it should be able to stand up to the vacuum of space. Mantises are good flying at high speeds, but they're meant to be used as gunships not fighter jets. If we lead F'Loson out of the Presidium's atmosphere bubble, I'll bet you five bucks the damage being done to her ship will become so great she'll have to turn back or risk getting stranded in the middle of nowhere," I explained quickly.

"_Mantises can go into outer space too you know!"_ Haxon noted to me as I dodged hard to the right to avoid a random burst of thermal rounds shot up at us.  
"Only if they've been pre-set beforehand for that," I countered.  
"_And if her ship has been?"  
_"Well then we're just gonna have to cross that bridge when we get to it now won't we?!"

Higher and higher we flew, rocketing up toward the top and flashing past the large glass window that looked in on the Council Chambers. After another second we cleared past the last comm-antenna standing up on the peek of the Tower and continued out into open space.

"_We are leaving the final upper levels of the atmosphere bubble, F'Loson is still maintaining her pursuit," _Haxon reported, the suit beginning to automatically adapt to the extreme temperature and pressure changes as we began entering into the weightless vacuum of the void.

"Just a little further…" I wheezed out as I put every ounce of my energy into it. For several agonizing seconds we kept going out into the wide-open space within the enclosure of the Citadel's five station arms, until finally I heard what I had been waiting for.

"_Repulsors are malfunctioning! We're not prepared to fly within zero atmosphere!" _the Asari's co-pilot shouted from the radio channel's background. In-spite of this however, F'Loson only kept pushing her ship to the max, causing several wires and fixtures attached to the ship's wings to explode or snap apart. Behind us I could faintly hear the crack of breaking metal and the brief firecracker like bursts of flame as the gunship's damaged propulsion mechanisms sputtered and snuffed out.

"_Mass effect cores are non-operational, all flight systems are shutting down. We have sustainable air and life support, but we're now dead in the water,"_ the co-pilot reported stiffly as the gunship came to a slow groaning halt, eventually floating lifelessly above the Tower within the zero-G of space.

"_Damn you Axel…"_ I heard Ciatra mutter viciously through my speakers.

I gave a loud laugh of victory as I severed the radio link between her and I, still blasting farther away from the crippled ship.  
"YEAH! You sir would have owed me a solid five bucks!" I said to my A.I. companion.

"_BRACE FOR IMPACT!"_ was Haxon's immediate answer. My look of glee was still etched on my face even as my brain went blank.

"Wha..." was all I could blurt out before the Iron Man was rocked backwards violently as if it had just been hit head-on by a freight train!

A massive fiery explosion ripped out all around me as some kind of energy blast impacted against the suit, consuming us within an enormous fireball and accompanying cloud of smoke.

* * *

"That's a confirmed hit sir. Repeat, confirmed hit!" A Salarian gunner reported into the visor headset he was wearing at his control console.

Within the massive hardened interior of the Citadel Defense Headquarters, C-Sec agents and operators of nearly every race were scurrying about madly. Many were carrying reports to high ranking officers working throughout the area, while others were manning holographic consoles on raised platforms, each one connected to a set of Defense turrets or cannons spread across the Citadel's hull.

The Salarian that had just spoken was seated in front of one of these consoles, which he had just used to manually target and fire one of the turrets on Axel's unknown vehicle!

"Has the target been destroyed?" the CO of the Defense Perimeter demanded over to the Salarian. This man was an average sized Turian dressed in a simple Hierarchy Military uniform, who at the moment was standing on a large round platform set up in the very center of the room, surrounded by occupied consoles and screens broadcasting a mind-boggling array of reports on the situation.

"Whatever he was flying was almost too small for me to find in the first place. The computer isn't picking up any signs of the craft itself or debris that may have come from it," the operator reported back. Leaning over one of the Human operator's shoulders, the CO tapped a talon onto a button that re-established the radio link between himself and Agent F'Loson.

"F'Loson, our computers can't find any remains of Axel's craft. Since you had the best view can you confirm that the target has been destroyed?"

* * *

While still floating helplessly overtop of the Citadel Tower, F'Loson and her co-pilot leaned forward in their seats, craning their necks to see out through the canopy of the Mantis's cockpit. Farther up above them a large grey cloud of smoke continued to dissipate across the dim blue expanse of the Serpent Nebula, showing no sign of any scrap metal or a body floating amidst it.

"There's no sign of him or the suit. But judging from the magnitude of the blast, I'd say the target has been vaporized," F'Loson answered into the radio before leaning back with a tired sigh.

(NOOOOOOO! To have come so far and just get vaporized like that! Oh the humanity!)

"What a shame. I was actually looking forward to that drink…" the co-pilot remarked quietly to himself as he and the liaison sat silently within the cockpit, while awaiting a C-Sec rescue team to come and tow their ship away. As the two gazed up at the beautiful cloudy expanse before them, watching the last of the smoke wisps disappear, they thought on the strange criminal they had been chasing and how in the blink of an eye he had been obliterated from the universe. Even though he had caused a lot of destruction in his wake, it suddenly occurred to F'Loson that Axel hadn't truly been acting like a ruthless terrorist, but instead more like a man who had found himself lost in an unfamiliar place and was simply unwilling to surrender to any authority in order to find his way to wherever he needed to be. Despite all the damage he and his accomplices had done, his un-willingness to give up was at least something Ciatra found she could respect about him.

As the two pilots continued to reflect on Axel's loss, if they had just been looking a _little_ bit further back to the rear most corner of the canopy, they might have caught the last glimpse of a small silver figure spiraling down through the air behind them!

(*Insert Captain Jack Sparrow's getaway theme music*)

* * *

"_Axel! Axel, dammit man wake up!"_ Haxon's voice pierced through the foggy darkness that obscured my vision, strangely sounding a lot like Dr. McCoy from Star Trek. Groggily my eyes began to flutter open, my senses slowly returning to consciousness after having been knocked out by that sudden explosion. Instantly upon remembering the explosion, I jerked awake with a sudden start, taking notice of the blinking red alarm flashing on my HUD, and the fact that I was now flipping end over end in a downward plummet past the hull of the Citadel Tower!

"How, where, wha..what happened!" I demanded hysterically, haphazardly flipping myself onto my stomach in a skydiver's X.  
"_We just took a direct hit from one of the station's Defense Turrets, they must have targeted us manually!"  
_"I thought they couldn't target us _period!_" I shouted as I twisted my body to the left, causing the seemingly unresponsive Iron Man suit to soar out of the way of an oncoming antenna.

"_They wouldn't have been able to if we hadn't been flying in _wide open_ space!" _

"We were a lot farther out than F'Loson was, why are we now falling?!" I demanded again, ignoring the A.I.'s statement.

"_The blast was powerful enough to knock us back into the atmosphere bubble, gravity is increasing back up to planetary levels the farther we fall!"_ Looking down below us, I could have placed another five bucks on us smashing down into the Embassy Walkway, since that's exactly where we were falling!

"Why isn't the suit working?" I asked quickly as I began trying to activate the thrusters through the flashing HUD, each attempt failing with an abrupt jump of smoke coming out of my hands and boots.

"_Most of the damage caused by the blast was superficial, but it did manage to disrupt several of the flight systems, including control for the thrusters and stabilizers,"_ Haxon reported as we continued to fall, the Walkway shooting closer and closer to us with each second.

"Can you fix it?" I asked tensely as I eyed the approaching ground with more than a few mixed feelings of anxiety.  
"_It'll take me a few moments,"_ the A.I. responded quickly, a slight waver in his voice as if he were sharing the same feelings as me about the situation.  
"That's all the time we've got! Try to make it a few _short_ moments!" I shouted out as we suddenly began falling through the periodic lanes of Embassy hover cars that zipped back and forth across the sky.

After a few seconds and a close call with a Fast Transit taxi went by, I closed my eyes and braced myself as we fell within a dozen feet of the polished tile paths that went about the garden-like Walkway. But then suddenly, my stabilizers and thrusters fired back up to full power!

Both Haxon and I gasped out a yell of surprise as we suddenly blasted forward, narrowly avoiding the pathway and skimming across the cool surface of the large Presidium Lakes that stretched on down the Walkway. Thrashing back and forth as my HUD's vision was blocked by the violent spray of water which the suit was kicking up, I pushed my hands forward, blasting up from the lakes in a cloud of mist and shooting us just overtop of a white bridge spanning across the Walkway ahead of us. This caused many Council diplomats and politicians moving across to scream and duck their heads as I whipped past.

All around me I could hear people and objects toppling over from the force of the wake being created by my boot thrusters, which also caused several hover cars parked along the edges to begin screeching out their security alarms as the wake hit them. This continued on as we blasted down the entire length of the Walkway in just a few seconds, traveling back down to where we had broken off from Alec and the rest of the pursuing C-Sec vehicles when the chase had first started!

"_Please don't wait until the last minute this time,"_ Haxon begged as the wall of the main Embassy District within the Presidium Ring shot up at us, stretching out across our path in a curving T formation as we entered the heart of the area once more.

"Wouldn't dream of it," I reassured him with no hints of sarcasm in my voice as I sharply banked around the left corner leading into this new Embassy Stretch, having had more than my fair share of close calls with the Iron Man suit for one day.

* * *

"Anderson, we both feel the same way about Shepard. He's the best chance Humanity has for continued advancement with the Council," Ambassador Donnel Udina stated back to Captain David Anderson. Both men were standing within the Ambassador's wide open office, gazing out through its balcony at the vast Embassy scenery as they continued discussing the future of Commander Shepard after the disastrous mission to Eden Prime.

At the moment Anderson was standing in front of Udina's large polished desk with his hands placed behind his back, remaining in his usual stiff backed military posture.

"I know that Ambassador, he is my XO after all. What's your point?" Anderson asked in his iconic deep smooth voice. Udina walked out onto his balcony, standing tall and obviously proud as his eyes scanned over the many other embassies spread across the area. In his hand was a mug of steaming hot coffee, which he took a slow drink from before answering.

"I know the things Shepard's been through, I was the one who looked over and approved his file before passing it on to the Council. What I want to make sure of however, is that if he is made a Spectre will he…" the Ambassador began, when suddenly a loud black and silver blur shot past the front of the balcony!

The object was so fast it was already past Udina before he could register the loud scream and force of it. The wake created by the object slammed into the Ambassador, causing him to stagger heavily and accidently fling his coffee all over the left side of his white business suit.

"AHH! OWW!" Udina shouted in pain as he began furiously patting down the steaming brown stain along the length of his arm.

"Are you alright?" Anderson asked suddenly as he crossed around the desk and came up to Udina's side.

"No! What in Holy Mary's name was that?" the Irishman bit out while holding on to his burnt arm. With squinting eyes, Anderson quickly leaned out over the balcony's railing to get a better view of the object that was blasting farther and farther down the Embassy District. Suddenly however it disappeared from sight, having made a sharp left turn around an oncoming corner. As he looked, both men also took notice of the many hover cars parked throughout the area, all of which had their alarms wailing loudly after the object had passed over them

"For a moment it looked like some kind of flying silver…man," Anderson said slowly, frowning as if his own words were confusing even to himself.

* * *

"YEEEAH! HaHaHa!" I laughed in victory as we banked around another turn that would lead us out of the Embassies, still partially relishing in the excitement of flying this suit.

"_Indeed! It looks as if for the moment C-Sec believes us to be dead!"_ Haxon stated, his voice sounding pleased and relieved. "That isn't gonna last for long, pretty soon the people we're passing will be placing a few calls to C-Sec Academy about a strange flying man disrupting their day," I said with another laugh.

"_Well then we'd better be as far away from this place as possible, and luckily I have a destination in mind."_

"You do?" I asked with a frown, pulling the Iron Man up a little bit higher to avoid a large Asari statue placed in the middle of one of the Presidium Lakes.  
"_During our flight from F'Loson, I had my subroutines continue searching through any Embassy data bases I could find. I finally hit on a mention of Shepard's whereabouts,"_ said Haxon with a slight pause.  
"Excellent, where was he?" I asked, maneuvering the suit to avoid more obstacles.

"_Just a few minutes ago C-Sec agents were dispatched to a gentlemen's club called Chora's Den to bring in a Krogan bounty hunter named Urdnot Wrex, who apparently has been contracted by the Shadow Broker to assassinate the club's owner. Upon detaining him, the agents say they saw Shepard leaving the club with two other Alliance soldiers. It doesn't mention where they were going, but I figured with your seemingly advanced knowledge of the future you'd have an idea of where we're at in terms of events,"_ Haxon reported. I gave a thin smile at that last comment.

"So he went to Harkin. Thanks Haxon, this actually helps a lot. Can you plot me a route that'll take us to the Wards, I'm looking for a Dr. Michel's office."

"_I can actually. Chloe is a good friend of Bruce's, but what does she have to do with any of this?"_ Haxon asked worriedly as he brought up a small mini-map of the Presidium in the corner of my HUD, showing a highlighted red line that snaked its way toward the intended Med-Clinic.

'_What is it with that woman and Turians?' _I thought amusedly.

"Shepard needs to find a C-Sec Investigations officer named Garrus Vakarian. In the next few minutes he's about to sneak into Michel's clinic and help rescue her from several armed thugs that have been sent by the Chora's Den owner to shut her up about evidence that'll implicate Saren Arterius," I explained quickly, gently shifting my hands and shooting us up higher into the sky as I began to follow Haxon's indicated route.

* * *

While this was happening, kilometers away Alec was shifting his own hands as he dug his talons into the metal of the Spider Ship, baring his teeth as he strained to climb higher one hand after the other. At the moment the Spider was clinging to the side of a tall solid radio-tower overlooking the curved edge of the Presidium Ring, growling loudly at the surrounding fleet of patrol cars that had come to a hover in front of it. Each car had one of its windows retracted to allow an agent to lean out, which also allowed each of these said agents to continue firing their guns on the beleaguered machine.  
Even though their thermal rounds only inflicted tiny scorch marks on the Ship's reinforced armour, they were causing havoc for Alec and his two smaller Replicator companions!

"Oww! WHOA!" Alec shouted in pain as one of the many rounds that continued to impact and shoot up sparks around him sliced into the back of his hand. This caused the Guardian to give out an exclamation of surprise as his injured hand lost its grip on the Spider, making him swing to the side slightly and get a fear inducing view of the Presidium hull far down below him.

"Well that's a beautiful sight…" Alec stated sarcastically under his breath as he looked down at the thousands of tiny complexes and Fast Transit cars that glinted in the noon sun. Suddenly another barrage of rounds impacted around him.

"Oh, would you people just SHUUUUUT UP!" Alec yelled angrily as he used his now re-healed free hand to draw one of Jango's pistols and fire back up at the offending agents, having slipped the leather strap connected to the Super-rifle back over his chest to allow him to use his talons on both hands for staying connected to the Spider.

Many of the patrol cars immediately pulled away as Alec's explosive red blasts slammed into their underbellies, giving him and the Replicators a moment of breathing time. Panting slightly as he slipped the pistol back under his belt, Alec could suddenly feel something fighting to squirm its way out from under his back. Frowning, he grabbed onto the Spider's back with both hands again and moved back to where he had been a moment ago. Sure enough a very angry Polly clawed out into the open, having gotten sandwiched between Alec's backside and that of the Ship when the Guardian had swung after losing his grip.

"Hey! You were the one who put yourself there!" Alec bit back at the Replicator, his defense being answered by a fierce hissing snap of Polly's pincers.

"Whatever. You're not even a real spider, you only have four legs," Alec remarked flippantly. This caused Polly to continue hissing slightly, but also periodically glancing at his four limbs, as if begrudgingly agreeing with the Guardian. Grunting as he climbed up a few more feet, Alec turned back to Polly and Sparky as they crawled up beside him.

"You know guys, as exciting as being shot at is, this has gotten old real quickly," he said to the two machines.

"_I have a lock! Target is locked on sir,"_ reported a male voice as Forsenski's omni-tool re-appeared around Alec's forearm.  
"Uh oh," Alec uttered as he shot his gaze back over his shoulder, catching sight of the two remaining Mantises taxi through the swarm of patrol cars, each one coming to a dead hover facing the Spider Ship.  
"_Then blow that damn thing out of the sky,"_ commanded the voice of the Turian CO in charge of the Defense Perimeter.  
"_Echo 4, you have the green light to engage!"_ another voice called out through the radio channel.  
"_Firing Red-Eyes,"_ the pilot of Echo 4 responded. Suddenly a huge gust of smoke appeared as two spiralling missiles fired from the launchers of one of the gunships, blasting straight toward Alec and the Replicators!

"Oh crud," Alec said in defeat. But before the missiles could strike, the Spider Ship let out an enormous roar as it bent each of its legs and launched itself a few dozen feet away from the tower.

"What good is that gonna…" Alec began, when suddenly he got his answer. Just as they were about to impact, the missiles arched around both sides of the Spider, soaring within a mere few inches of its body but missing it entirely!

The two projectiles continued on behind them before slamming into the side of the tower. A massive explosion shot out, destroying a section of the tower's walls and all of the structural supports built into its center.

For several tense seconds the top half of the damaged spire groaned as it swayed back and forth before progressively tumbling over to the side, continuing on until it was free falling over the edge of the Ring and diving haphazardly into the swirls of space!  
As that was happening, the Spider Ship quickly leveled itself out, allowing Alec and the other Replicators to stand up on its backside once again as the Ship began to soar through the stunned fleet of agents.

"Next time learn how to aim!" Alec shouted up to the Echo 4 Mantis, angrily shaking his fist as he flew past.

"_Aw damn….uhhh, uh that is a negative impact, I say again a _negative_ impact,"_ the pilot finally reported, _very_ awkwardly, as the falling piece of tower slammed against the Citadel's lower hull, breaking into smaller pieces on its downward journey toward Widow. Luckily it had only been a transmission tower, and therefore was un-manned. "_Negative impact? If that thing had fallen any further to the left it would have smashed down on top of a residential sector!"_ Echo 4's co-pilot barked in the background of Alec's eavesdropping transmissions.

"_You said you had it locked on!"_ the Turian CO's voice stated angrily over the radio waves. As this debate was going on, Echo 4 and 5 along with the fleet of patrol cars had regained themselves and were now once again in hot pursuit of Alec and the Replicators.  
"_Echo 4, we_ did _have you locked on,"_ the other voice from the Defense Headquarters stated in confusion.

"_The heat-seekers can't seem to get a lock on that spider sir, its thermal emissions are colder than the buildings around it,"_ Echo 4's pilot reported as he tried locking on to the Spider Ship for a second attempt, and this time failing.  
"_Then lock on to Alec's body signature!"_ the CO barked.  
"_We can't seem to do that either, his body temperature is twice below the needed threshold."_ There was a long pause before the CO responded.  
"_How is that possible?  
_"_I don't know sir, but Alec isn't Human, and given what we already know about him he may not even need the same heat levels as normal organics do,"_ the pilot answered as he and the others kept up their chase.

"Well DUUH! You guys have already seen some of my other party tricks, is a lowered body temperature really too much to grasp?" Alec asked out loud with an astounded shake of his head as he shut down Forsenski's omni-tool. After doing so, he quickly reached behind himself and slipped the Super-rifle from his back, while Polly and Sparky re-morphed their legs with the blocks of the Spider to recreate their blaster cannons. There was still a lot of distracting to do before any of them could take a rest.

(So Alec may be cold-blooded? Hmmm, interesting.)

* * *

"_This is it. Michel's Med-Clinic is about a few dozen feet below us,"_ Haxon said as I slowed the suit down to an easy glide overtop of a polished section of roofing.

"Alright, the next events should still unfold in their proper order, even with all the trouble we've been causing. All we need to do is find a way to get down there and then just watch the action unfold," I told the A.I. as I came to a dead hover less than a foot above the roof.

"_Axel, this roof won't be able to…"_ Haxon began trying to explain.

"Killing power _now_," I unknowingly interrupted as I shut down the boot thrusters and flight stabilizers, allowing me to drop from the air onto the roof.

Only instead of landing on the roof, I crashed straight through it!

Tearing down through roof metal and smashing into support beams, I grunted and cringed as the Iron Man suit zigzagged from one obstacle to another, making me flip end over end several times before slamming down onto a particularly large beam that ran down the entire length of the area Michel's clinic was located in.

"You were saying?" I inquired to Haxon as I slowly sat up, wincing in some discomfort from the many hits I had just taken. As I brushed off some fragments from my suit's scratched and soot covered armour, I was grateful to see that all of the debris created by my recent rough journey had gotten lodged farther up within the inner makings of the ceiling. This helped to keep the many dozens of people scattered throughout the Ward's area from taking notice of me.

"_Never mind…"_ Haxon finished with a sigh.

As I stood upright on top of the beam, I took a look at my surroundings, flicking the HUD's targeting reticule to several different sections and zooming in periodically.

"This is the place alright," I stated with a nod as I recognized the same landmarks around the area that I had seen in the game. The large window giving citizens a breathtaking view of one of the Citadel's arms spanned out behind and below us, while the market stalls and parked Fast Transit cars sat next to their terminals at either ends of the silver-walled and blue floored stretch.

"Chloe!" Haxon said suddenly, sounding fearful and almost defensive. Snapping my gaze over toward the sliding metal door that led into Dr. Michel's clinic, I could easily see what had cause the A.I.'s reaction.

Six men clothed in brown T-shirts and cargo pants were quickly taking positions around Michel's door, each armed with assault rifles and pistols strapped to them.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine," I reassured as I crouched low and began making my way farther down the length of the support beam I was standing on, trying to get to a vantage point overlooking the building as close as possible. As I did so, the six armed thugs took one quick look around themselves before tapping the glowing pad set up next to the clinic's door, causing it to slid open and permit them entrance.

"Switch to thermal imaging," I said as the thugs barged inside, momentarily disappearing from view before reappearing through the clinic's walls as yellow and orange figures.

The thermal image of Dr. Chloe Michel appeared farther up ahead as well. At the moment she appeared to be standing next to one of the clinic's beds, looking over an OSD pad in her hands with her back turned to the door. That quickly changed once the six thugs moved in and overwhelmed her. As she spun around in alarm, my suit's audio sensors picked up a startled scream come out of Michel, which was immediately answered by one of the thugs back-handing her across the face.

"_They may kill her! You have to do something!"_ Haxon stated angrily as the thugs continued to harass the doctor.

"I _can't_ do anything. It would alter events that are suppose to happen," I said sharply, even though I too was having a hard time sitting still with this.

"_How do you know that for sure? What if something changes?!" _Haxon insisted desperately.

"Garrus will be here, just trust me. Look! There he is now!" I said back to the A.I. before suddenly pointing over to an approaching Turian dressed in blue and black armour.

"Wow. It's really him," I breathed out in awe as I targeted and zoomed in on the agent. It was Garrus Vakarian alright; who at the moment was pretty near running toward Dr. Michel's office while drawing an advanced Kessler pistol from his belt.

"_Um Axel?"_ Haxon suddenly asked in an odd tone, as if he had just discovered something out of the ordinary.

"I never thought I'd see this guy in the flesh. Although he seems a little bit shorter than I remember," I remarked as I looked over his appearance, taking note of the more detailed look to his suit of armour, as well as the visual Interface that crossed over his left eye.

"_Axel!"_ Haxon snapped at me.

"What?" I asked immediately in slight annoyance.

"_If Vakarian is going to need Commander Shepard's help to save Chloe, then who are these people showing up now?"_ the A.I. asked slowly. Frowning as I looked around the area for what he was talking about, I suddenly noticed six more thermal figures quickly moving in toward the door, stealthily coming up behind Garrus as he went into a low crouch before tapping the glowing activation pad.

As he snuck into the clinic without Fist's thugs noticing, two of these new arrivals followed him in, while the remaining four took up guarding positions on both sides of the doorway.

Strangely however, they continued to face inward toward the door rather than outward, as if they were trying to keep the people inside the clinic from leaving.

"Wait a minute, this never happened," I said with extreme suspicion as I watched the two other unidentified combatants take up positions on either side of the door's interior, keeping their weapons trained on the thugs ahead of them.

What was even stranger was that, unlike the still sneaking Garrus, the combatants were standing out in plain sight, and yet the thugs were taking no notice of them!

"_I told you something might change from the events you knew. Luckily however it seems to have been for the better, obviously Vakarian must have called in reinforcements,"_ Haxon stated, sounding slightly relieved.

"No, this isn't right. Who the hell are these people?" I asked with a deep frown, shaking my head as an uneasy feeling hit my gut. From what the image on my HUD showed, this unknown squad appeared to be all Turian in appearance, each helmeted and armoured from head to toe.

"_Most likely C-Sec Spec-Ops agents. The advanced armour they're wearing is similar in design, plus their movements are displaying a high level of tactical training. Although the active camouflage they're wearing is odd, I didn't think C-Sec had the budget to equip their agents with that kind of technology."_

Suddenly my eyes went wide as the A.I. said this.

"Whoa, wait a minute! _Active camouflage?_ As in cloaking devices? You mean no-one else can see these guys?!" I asked quickly, as the situation in the clinic began approaching the moment when Shepard was supposed to make his big entrance.

"Bring the HUD's resolution to its highest setting," I ordered before the A.I. could answer. As the image cleared up, I quickly targeted and zoomed in on the dark weapons being held by the mysterious Turians.

"Haxon do you recognize any of these weapons?" I asked before a see-through schematic of the scanned weapons scrolled into view in front of me.

"_No…I've never seen these before. And the records from Steven's smuggling transactions make no mention of anything like this ever being used by the Council governments, or any of the prominent pirate bands in the galaxy,"_ Haxon responded after a slight pause.

As he said this, my eyes were only getting wider, and that uneasy feeling in my gut had now turned into a klaxon alarm going off in my head.

Haxon may not have recognized these weapons, but I _did!_

"That's because they don't exist in this universe," I said in shock, my voice coming out unusually soft.

"_What do you mean?"_ Haxon asked.

"The weapons they're holding are short range repeating Blaster Rifles, used by the 501st Clone Battalion in _Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith!_" I said loudly upon recognizing the guns.

"_I think you watched way too many movies before arriving in this galaxy,"_ Haxon stated incredulously.

"No! If they're hiding behind active camouflage while using those weapons…I don't think they're here to help Garrus…" I began as I watched Garrus creep closer and closer toward the group of thugs. Immediately out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the two Turian combatants within the clinic had changed the direction of their barrels, and were now aiming them straight at Garrus's backside!

"He doesn't know they're in there with him. They're not here to help Garrus, they're here to _kill_ him!" Tensing my muscles as adrenaline shot through my veins, I stood up to my full height, targeting all four of the Turians grouped outside the door.

"_So what's the plan then?"_ Haxon asked suddenly as he flicked the vision in my HUD back to normal combat readiness.

"We need to stop them before its too late!" I shouted as I leapt from the support beam.

Several citizens passing by screamed and scattered out of the area as I slammed down onto the polished metal flooring, denting it slightly. Right away the four Turians turned their weapons on me, dropping their active camouflages and revealing themselves.

"Who are you and how did you get those weapons?!" I barked at them as I raised both arms with my palms open, the stabilizer weapons letting out their high whines as they charged to full power.

"Destroy it," one of them ordered from behind his helmet in a gravely, almost synthetic voice that sounded similar to a Decepticon from _Transformers_. Right away I fired out two bright blasts of blue energy before these new enemies could fire their own weapons, each one slamming into the chest of one of the Turians. This sent the first two harshly flying backwards into their other two comrades, causing them to stagger slightly. With quick reflexes I fired another blast into the Blaster Rifle of the supposed leader of the squad, sending his weapon flying out of his talons. Lunging forward, I used the Iron Man's enhanced strength to deliver a bone shattering punch into the chest of the third Turian, causing him to fly backwards and smash into the polished wall of Michel's Med-Clinic.

Suddenly I heard two clicks, plus a sharpening sound like that of metal grating against metal. Spinning around, I saw the forth Turian standing before me with his arms spread out at his sides in a vicious combat pose.

"Oh shit!" I said once I saw what was attached to those arms. Extending farther and farther out from armoured gauntlets until they were nearly two feet long, were two pairs of serrated Predator Wrist-Blades!

With an inhuman, or in-Turian I guess you could say, roar, the leader charged toward me at almost supernatural speeds. Yelling out in surprise, I dodged to the side, avoiding a deadly swipe that scratched into the side of my armour. The Turian pulled himself around and attacked again, all the while growling like some rabid animal. Taking aim with one hand I fired a beam blast at him, which struck into and blew off a section of his shoulder plating. But this barely slowed him down!

Baring my teeth, I raised my hands into fists, using the length of my armoured forearm to block a quick high attack. A sharp clang shot out along with a few sparks as the wrist-blades connected with the Iron Man's reinforced plating. Still snarling, the Turian began striking at me viciously. Swiping, stabbing, and slashing, I continued to deflect and parry all of them with my forearms, backing up step by step as this strange creature threw himself at me.

This little skirmish only lasted for three or four seconds, but with the speed this man moved at it felt almost like minutes. Finally he made the mistake of stabbing forward with both his arms, which in turn allowed me to lunge close to him and wrap both of _my_ arms around his as they speared past the sides of my torso. With his arms firmly locked in mine, the insane Turian only had a second to look into the emotionless glowing eyes of my helmet before I pulled it back and delivered a vicious head-butt straight into the tinted visor of his own. The sound of breaking glass accompanied this, along with the sickening sound of cutting flesh as my armoured forehead smashed apart a section of the visor.

The Turian's body slackened slightly as he tried to recover from the damage of the hit, allowing me to grab the man by the neck and throw him against the clinic's wall.

"What the…" I said in horror as I held the thrashing Turian against it, catching a small glimpse of the man's face through the shattered hole in his visor. It was a grotesque sight, his teeth and mandibles glistening from the blue blood of his injury, but also from the hundreds of tiny cybernetic implants woven in and out of his ghostly pale skin and jawbone. As I struggled to hold him, the Turian broke one of his arms free and tried to make a stab with his wrist-blades.

Giving my own growl of effort, I used my super-strength to thrown the man through the air over my shoulder and slam him very hard onto the floor behind me, creating a large dent as I drove him down.

The sound of cracking vertebras crunched out the moment he hit the ground, his struggles and growling ceasing instantly as the suit's strength accidentally broke his neck.

"Oh Bailey's really not gonna like this," I said with a wince as I stood up from the body, stunned by what I had just done. I had killed men before on my deployments, with guns, grenades, knives, even my bare hands once or twice. But never had I been able to simply snap a person's neck in half with a mere flexing of my fingers. Breathing slowly, I looked down at my hand and curled the fingers that had just killed this man into a fist.

"_Technically you were defending yourself while trying to save others. And by the way you totally kicked ass just now,"_ Haxon complimented me as I looked over at the other three squad members lying across the floor.

"No, this situation is just getting worse! These guys were using Star Wars blaster rifles with Predator wrist-blades attached to their forearms, and on top of that…" I began before reaching down and ripping off the helmet of the recently killed Turian.

"At least one of them was some kind of evil ninja cyborg sandwich!" I finished as I recoiled away from the hideous implant woven face and fading robotic red eyes that vacantly stared back up at me.

"How could they have gotten their hands on this kind of hardware? It would have to have been here long before I ever came to this place," I commented mostly to myself in confusion.

But before I could think on it any further, a loud sizzling sound came, along with wisps of smoke swirling around the area. Looking around, I noticed that each of the Turians' weapons, plus the entire body of the dead cyborg, were quickly dissolving away into nothing!

"Some kind of acid?" I asked Haxon as the last of the body and weapons disappeared, while leaving the other three sleeping Turians lying where they'd fallen. "_Whatever it was, it was meant to dispose of evidence,"_ Haxon answered after witnessing it himself.

"I didn't tell anyone, I swear!" my sensors picked up the accented voice of a young woman crying out from inside the Med-Clinic. "Garrus and Michel!" I said as I bolted back over to the door. "_There are still two more of those things in there,"_ Haxon reminded me quickly.

"Hopefully the leader was the only cyborg out of the bunch. Where's Shepard though? He should've been here by now!" I said as I took a look around the area before pressing my hand against the door's activation pad. Instantly upon touching it, the pad shot out a hail of hissing sparks, remaining permanently closed.

"Okay, so you guys wanna booby-trap stuff, then booby-tap this!" I said viciously before diverting all unnecessary power to the suit's super-strength, raising my leg and slamming it straight into the center of the clinic's steel door.

A huge dent materialized in the door at the exact second the force of my kick blasted it out from its cradle, causing it to shoot across most of the room and stab into the side of that waist high wall partition, desk…thing, set up near the center. The destruction of the door sent up a huge gust of smoke and an explosion of sparks, one that I charged straight through.

The other two members of the Turian squad had already dropped their cloaks, spinning around on either side of the door and bringing up their blasters in order to try and stop me. With a lightning fast backward elbow strike, I smashed in the right Turian's helmet visor, causing him to crumble against the wall before even having a chance to aim. For the second one I had to send a wild uppercut into the barrel of his rifle, causing it to jerk upward and fire a loud blue blast into the clinic's ceiling. With suit induced strength and speed, I made short work of this Turian by delivering a solid punch straight across the side of his head, and then another one into the center of his stomach.

My enemy fell over headfirst into the floor, wheezing in pain as he held onto his injured diaphragm. From the sounds this one was making, I had a pretty good feeling that he was normal and not one of those crazy cyborgs.

"So the leader _was_ the only one," I remarked to myself as I looked down on these two, feeling slightly relieved by this discovery.

"Now just what the hell are you?!" a gruff male voice shouted over to me, sounding very pissed off, but also slightly afraid. Glancing up to the far end of the room, I saw Fist's band of thugs all training guns on me, the leader of whom had his arm wrapped around Dr. Michel's neck, holding her hostage just like he would in the game. Snapping up my right hand, I pointed my open palm at him.

"Your second-worst nightmare pal," I answered coolly, my voice coming out ten times more menacing from the radio tinge the suit added to it.

Crouched just out of the thugs' line of sight in front of the wall partition, Garrus Vakarian also had his pistol trained on me, but his face held a look of curiousity rather than fear. A few seconds of awkward silence dragged by with all of us keeping our weapons on each other, before finally I let out an annoyed sigh and turned to Garrus, politely gesturing to the thugs with my other hand. Luckily Garrus was practical enough not to argue at the moment, giving me a short nod before springing around the end of the partition and firing a round into the side of the lead thug's head.

Dr. Michel yelled and wedged her eyes shut as the round tore into the man's skull, shooting a small splash of blood out the other side. In that instant the arm around her shoulders slackened as his body fell to the ground. All of the thugs gasped and backed away as Garrus stood up and began advancing on them in his slow deliberate manner, the Kessler now pointed ahead of him in both hands.

"He's your first," I said to the rest of the group with a thin smile, nodding my own head over to Garrus.

"Screw you cops!" one of them shouted at us before opening fire. Michel screamed again as she dove to the ground, covering her head with her arms as rounds began flying overtop over her. I immediately fired a blast that knocked one of the thugs into a nearby wall while Garrus took cover, quickly peeking out and sending three new rounds into another thug's chest. As the other criminals took cover and continued firing, Michel was fearfully trying to crawl across the floor toward Garrus, hesitating as each shot flashed near her. Suddenly one of the thugs sprang out from his cover and fired, causing the doctor to give a louder scream of pain as the round skinned across the back of one of her thighs.

"_Chloe! We need to get to her!"_ Haxon shouted. Bringing up the thruster controls, I fired the power levels up to 1%, causing my boots to launch me only a few feet into the air. Redirecting my hands, I quickly hover-floated across the length of the room and ducked through the open section of the wall partition, landing down in front of the cringing doctor and blocking her from the rest of the thugs' fire.

"You're clear, get her to cover!" I shouted over to Garrus as I put my attention back on the criminals, jerking several times as their rounds began to impact against the Iron Man's chest-plate.

"Got it!" I heard Garrus respond as he quickly moved over to Michel, grabbing her under the armpits and dragging her to safety.

I was grinning slightly as I aimed and fired a blast at the three remaining thugs. As bad as the circumstances were, this experience was actually pretty cool, I was standing and fighting in the Iron Man suit alongside Garrus Vakarian! Garrus had always been one of my favourite characters from Mass Effect, and now to have him working as a team with me was something I never would have dreamed of.

"I should write a story about this if I ever get back home!" I said in effort as I thrust both my hands forward, firing two simultaneous blasts into the chest of the closest thug. The man shouted in pain as he was blasted back against the wall ahead of me, smashing between the two others that had taken cover behind a pillar and a large container, just like they always would in the game.

Also just like in the game, conveniently placed in between these two thugs was a small fragile container of some unstable substance, one that was quite explosive when shot at.

"At least some things have stayed the same," I remarked before targeting the container in my HUD and firing from my outstretched hand. The remaining two thugs yelled as the container exploded in a large blast of smoke and debris, killing the man standing next to the pillar while knocking over the nearby larger container and throwing the second one several feet away from it.  
As he landed harshly in front of me, his pistol was thrown out of his hand and skidded next to my foot. Immediately, despite the nasty looking cuts and burns on his torso, the thug tried clawing across the floor to reach it, but was stopped when I raised my armoured boot and crushed the weapon underfoot.

"I'm sorry! Were you needing that?!" I said in mock horror as I covered the mouth section of my helmet with my hand. The thug snarled in rage as he sprung up and threw a punch straight across my cheek.

"AHAARGH!" the man screamed in pain as a short metallic _clunck!_ accompanied his strike, holding on to his newly fractured knuckles with his other hand. Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt so as to see eye to eye with him, I couldn't help but shake my head in astonishment, a feeling that was shared by Garrus as I noticed him cock one of his brow-ridges from where he was applying medi-gel to Michel's leg.

"You know, I have seen some severe levels of stupid in my life, but you just raised them when you threw a punch at a guy wearing an armoured helmet," I stated to the scowling thug before drawing back my fist and throwing my own punch into the center of his forehead, knocking him out cold and causing him to tumble backwards onto one of the clinic's beds.

"Well, its good to see that's all over…" I began, when suddenly.

"Behind you!" Garrus shouted over to me. Before I could spin around, I felt a very strong arm wrap around my neck, so strong in fact that it actually began to crush some of the Iron Man's hardened plating. Grabbing onto it with both hands, I struggled and thrashed, trying to use the suit's super strength to pry my attacker off. But surprisingly it wouldn't move no matter how hard I tried!

"Here's some more advice for you. When you knock down an enemy, make sure he's going to _stay_ down before you turn your back on him," a Turian voice whispered venomously in my ear.

"Good advice, I'll be sure to follow it this time!" I hissed back as I quickly reached behind myself and wrapped both arms around the back of my assailant's neck, eliciting a surprised growl from him as I flung the man over my head. The Turian hit the ground in a roll, coming back up onto his feet and spinning around to face me. He had been the one who'd had his visor smashed in a while ago; forcing the Turian to remove his helmet and show is face.

I was mildly surprised; he looked like an average guy with grey skin similar to Garrus, and brown tribal markings going across his cheeks. However, he still gave an animalistic snarl as he surged forward, moving at the same super-speed that his nightmarish cyborg leader had during our last fight.

The Turian drew an arm back and threw a punch, to which I barely caught in my right hand, his incredible strength nearly matching that of the suit's!

The Turian and I bared our teeth as we struggled to push the other's hand back, straining to and fro until he drew back his other fist and threw a rock solid punch straight across the cheek of my helmet.

Only this time instead of crying in pain like the thug before him had, _I_ was the one to make a noise of pain as the force of his blow knocked me backwards, his knuckles scraping against the side of the helmet as if they were made of metal!

"Okay, what I just said to _that_ guy clearly doesn't apply to _this _guy," I commented to Haxon as I shook my head to clear the stinging racing across my face, briefly pointing from the thug still sleeping on the clinic bed to the Turian in front of me. Having fallen against the side of the wall partition, I shoved myself off and brought my arm up into a high attack, driving my fist down toward the Turian's head in hopes of knocking him to the ground. But instead the Turian only brought up his left arm in a defensive pose, blocking my forearm in a cross formation. As our arms slammed against each other, a distinctive metallic clang rang throughout the room.

"_Axel…"_ Haxon said forebodingly.

"You _can't _be serious!" I said in shock mixed with sheer dread. Some of the black armour the Turian wore on his arm had torn away from the force of the hit, showing off a reinforced skeletal structure underneath made up of black metal, surrounded by sleek wires and plating that seemed to bend like living muscle. The Turian gave a sadistic chuckle at my reaction, using his other hand to indicate the arm.

"Just one of the benefits of serving my master," he explained, right before using that other arm to grab onto my neck and throw me several feet across the room down to where the last two thugs had just been!

I grunted as I slammed onto the floor and slid into the wall, coughing slightly as I massaged my throat.

"And just who, or _what_ is your master?" I asked painfully to the approaching Turian as I got back up to my feet. He smirked as he began ripping the rest of the armour pieces from his arms and shoulders, showing off more of his sleek mechanical limbs.

"A being of infinite greatness, one that has come to this universe to save our galaxy from its intended fate."

My eyes narrowed as he said this. "You know of the Reapers?" I asked slowly. "_The what?"_ Haxon asked suddenly, clearly having no idea what I was talking about. The Turian only cackled softly at this.

"Our Master has journeyed far through the cosmoses, and will obliterate the Reapers with the might of the infinite army he has brought with him. Unfortunately…" he began as he fell into a fighting stance, drawing back his right arm in readiness.

"You will never live to see the day when his divine power frees us of our shackles, and allows _all_ of our galaxy to attain Enlightenment!" With that the plates and wires that made up his three talons morphed together and extended outward, the rest of his forearm following suit to create a two foot long blade of black steel!

"I hate fighting cyborgs!" I shouted after an exasperated breath.

The Turian charged, swinging his sword-arm in from the right. I countered by blocking with my left forearm and smashing a right hook into the side of his face. He grunted angrily before sending another solid punch into the side of my torso with his other hand. For a few seconds we traded blows until suddenly the Turian sent the point of his knee driving straight into my groin!

I was practically blinded by pain for a moment, buckling over slightly as the sensation travelled through my genitals and coursed into my abdomen.

"_It would appear that his legs are also cyberneticly enhanced,"_ Haxon remarked with very audible wince in his voice. Despite the lessening effect the suit's armour had had on the impact, the pain was still so great that I barely heard him.

"UHHG! Dirty, dirty fighting!" I wheezed/groaned out as I buckled over further, holding onto the effected area with one hand while loosely pointing up at the Turian with the other. The Turian twitched his mandibles in an odd way and slightly half nodded, as if he too thought his last attack was a bit excessive.

"My apologies, allow me to end the pain," he stated before pulling back his sword-arm in readiness to stab.

"WAIT! Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! Just time-out, time-out for a few seconds please?" I asked quickly, still in pain, making a frantic T formation with my hands. The Turian paused, and then relented, giving a shrug and another half nod.

"It seems the Iron Man suit does not offer as much protection as my Master thought," the Turian remarked as he looked down on me.

'_This guy knows about the Iron Man suit?'_ I thought in confusion.

But right away that confusion was replaced by determination as I snapped up and clamped a hand onto the surprised Turian's shoulder, holding him still as I drove the point of my armoured knee into _his_ groin!

"OHHHGGH!" the Turian groaned out very painfully as he buckled forward, holding on to me slightly to keep himself from crumbling to the floor.

"Yeah? Well I guess next time you should ask your Master to robotosize _those_ as well!" I said sarcastically down to him as he pulled away from me.

"Uh uh, time, time, time!" he groaned quickly without looking at me, placing the flat of his sword-arm on top of his left hand's talons in a T formation similar to mine.

"_Axel, with the force the suit delivered to his nether regions he should be on the floor writhing in agony!"_ Haxon warned. But the Turian was already way ahead of him, dropping his act immediately and snapping up his left arm toward my head. Before it made contact with my faceplate, six other mechanical talons sprouted out from the plates surrounding his wrist, latching on to either side of the helmet as his palm blacked out my vision!

I yelled out as he slammed my head against the wall behind me, his synthetic arm suddenly sending a powerful bolt of electricity through his talons into my suit. This caused the HUD to flicker into erratic lines of static, while painful sparks and puffs of smoke shot up around my cheeks, causing me to shut my eyes and hold my breath as the inside of the helmet filled up with the harmful fumes. I could hear him cackling as he used the length of his sword arm to keep me pinned to the wall, his cyberneticly enhanced strength winning out against my struggles as I thrashed my own arms, desperately trying to throw him off.

"It is quite difficult to fight what you cannot see," he hissed menacingly.

Growling in effort, I used my hands to feel up the length of his arm, blindly moving until my armoured palms smacked against the side of his face. Before he could react, I quickly drew back my arm and swiped a punch against the side of his head, followed by another and another!

"Yes quite difficult…" I mimicked him sarcastically with a cough, still keeping my eyes closed as I fought.

Frantically I continued to pummel him, but no matter what I did he still managed to keep his nine metal talons firmly locked around my helmet. That was until a loud Kessler shot rang throughout the room.

Suddenly I heard the Turian give a cry of pain, a cry that I had heard many times during my military career. Three more shots rang out, two of which were followed by similar cries while the third was answered only with silence. Immediately after that third shot the grip on my head relaxed, and I could hear the heavy thud of the Turian's dead body collapsing to the floor as he fell away from me. While his legs and arms had been nearly indestructible, it appeared as though his torso above his waist was still organic, and therefore hadn't been able to stand up to conventional weapons.

"I was hoping I could avoid this…" I said weakly after several coughs as I made the Iron Man's faceplate rise up over my head, allowing the smoke that had built up within the helmet to vent out as well as let me open my eyes somewhat again.

"Tell me you can fix it," I said to Haxon as I waved a hand in front of myself to dispel the fading swirls floating out.

"_Luckily it was just an electrical overload, I can have the HUD back online in a few moments." _

As I had guessed, Garrus was standing ahead of me near the wounded Dr. Michel, his smoking pistol still loosely pointed at the dead man on the floor.

"Thanks," I nodded to him.

"Sorry it took me so long, I tried popping him off earlier when the fight began but my gun was having problems calibrating properly," Garrus apologized, frowning slightly as he looked over both sides of his pistol. I on the other hand had an eyebrow cocked and an incredulous look on my face.

"Riiiiiiiight…" I said in a Doctor Evil sort of way, thinking back to a certain Internet meme made famous by Garrus from Mass Effect 2.

"Although by the looks of things I'd say I'm the one who should be thanking you, if you hadn't dropped in when you did these two would have surely killed us all. I can't believe I didn't notice them come in with me," Garrus continued without noticing my statement, looking over toward the other Turian lying unconscious next the doorway.

"_Axel. Their acid is activating again!"_ Haxon suddenly reported. Sure enough the body of the other cyborg Turian began to quickly dissolve away into nothing, causing myself, Garrus, and a recovering Dr. Michel to recoil away from the acidic wisps of smoke rising up from it. The same thing was happening to the Turians' weapons, their blaster rifles and Predator Wrist-Blades also quickly wasting away into thin air.

"Destroying the evidence, damn these guys are thorough!" Garrus bit out disappointedly as he shot his gaze back to where the cyborg had been.

"I'm afraid that means I have to leave now, C-Sec is going to be here soon to find out what happened, and without anymore evidence I'll be the next best thing," I stated before tensely making my way past Vakarian and Michel.

"Well wait, do you at least have a name Mr.…?" Garrus asked as he reached out and grabbed onto my armoured shoulder, stopping me beside him.

"Sorenson," I answered, looking Garrus in the eye as he got a good look at my exposed face. Garrus squinted slightly before a small smile of revelation hit his own face.

"That wouldn't go with the name _Axel_, would it?" he asked with a cocked brow-ridge.

"Oh COME _ON!_" I said in frustration as I ripped away from him, the faceplate sliding down and resealing over my face as Haxon repaired the HUD.

"Could you hold off on trying to arrest me? I've just been through a lot and I'm a bit winded," I stated to him tiredly as I raised my hand and targeted his chest, the HUD reappearing around my face immediately. But to my surprise Garrus only raised his hands in surrender with an amused look on his face.

"Hey relax! I'm not on Chellick's task-force, so technically I don't have absolute authority to nab you," he explained through several chuckles.

"You're a C-Sec officer though, aren't your orders to try and detain me if you get the chance?" I asked, keeping my open palm trained on him.

"They are, but I'm also not one to _'look a gift horse in the mouth'_, as I've heard some Humans say. You saved my life and possibly helped put an end to an internal conspiracy, the least I can do is give you a chance to make a clean getaway," Garrus said with a nod to me. I narrowed my eyes as I powered down the flight stabilizer, lowering my arm somewhat but staying alert for any sudden moves.

"How do you know you can take a chance on me? What if I _am_ what C-Sec has been saying? A terrorist, a madman," I posed to the Turian. Garrus merely gave another chuckle as he also lowered his arms slightly.

"I've seen the footage C-Sec has on you. Despite the damage you and your accomplices have been causing, you're actions look more like those of a bunch of lost renegades rather than terrorists. You might still be madmen, but not terrorists."

I cocked my head slightly in satisfied impressment.  
"I guess I can accept that. In that case you have my thanks for this Mr. Vakarian, I'll definitely remember it if we ever meet again," I stated to him with a small nod of respect, to which he nodded back before I turned and began making my way to the clinic's exit.

"Thank you for your help saving me," Dr. Michel threw in as she slowly stood up on her good leg, gingerly bracing herself against one of the clinic's pillars.

"If we do somehow meet again Axel, what should I call you? An acquaintance? An ally?" Garrus called up to me. Stopping and glancing over my shoulder once I had gotten to the wrenched doorframe, I gave a small smile that he couldn't see.

"A friend…" I said simply before walking out.

* * *

"_How do you know Vakarian can be trusted not to turn us in?" _Haxon asked after I stepped into the main Ward area. The three other Turian assassins were still lying about where I had left them, and were most likely to stay that way until C-Sec arrived to place them under arrest.

"Garrus is a straight shooter, if he gave us his word that he'll stay off our backs then that's exactly what he's going to do," I answered to the A.I. as I turned to the left, toward the area where there would be a guard-railing and a glowing terminal that could summon a Fast Transit Taxi to this location.

"_But how can you truly…"_ he began again, when suddenly he stopped in mid-sentence as I froze in mid-step.

The hover car that would usually be parked beside the Taxi terminal ahead of us had its doors and roof wide open, as if it had just landed here a moment ago. Standing in front of it with their pistols in their hands were Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams…

…and Commander Shepard! (FINALLY!)

**Continue on next chapter…**


	9. I am Iron Man? Part 3

**Chapter 7 continued.**

My eyes were wider than melons as I remained rooted to the spot. This was definitely not how I had wanted to meet them.

Each was dressed in their usual attire, with Kaidan in his black Sentinel armour, and Ash in her red and white marine's armour. Both of them were standing at Shepard's flanks, their guns slightly raised but not aiming at me yet. Commander Shepard however was remaining just as frozen in place as I was, dressed in the shiny jet-black N7 armour I had seen him wearing back in the Council Chambers. At the moment his right hand was hovering over the compact sidearm clipped to his belt, but his eyes were squinting at me with a mixed look of military readiness and curiousity.

"_Well…at least now we've gotten a good look at his face,"_ Haxon said in a cheery but awkward tone.

Shepard had a well-proportioned face, with a strong jaw and reasonably high cheekbones. His black hair was quite short but still just long enough to be almost wavy in a way similar to Jango's. A very trim and well-kept black goatee surrounded his mouth, one that covered the center part of his strong chin and connected to the fine mustache going across his upper lip. As I took in his facial features, I stopped at his rich hazel brown eyes and black eyebrows.

'_This isn't as much of a surprise as I was expecting,'_ I thought with some disappointment as the commander and I regarded each other.

This Shepard was the very one I had created when I had played Mass Effect for the first time!

'_If he looks the same, he'll probably have the same backstory I used. Maybe he'll even have the same personality…'_ I continued thinking as I scanned the three Alliance personnel with the Iron Man's HUD. When I had played through Mass Effect 1 I had mostly been a Paragon, willing to help those in need and mediate disputes while still taking some Renegade actions when I felt like it, and I had continued that into my Mass Effect 2 play-through. Hopefully the Shepard standing in front of me was the same man I had molded through those stories.

For several very tense seconds we stared at each other, as if seeing a ghost of someone familiar, neither of us breathing or blinking.

"_So, glorious leader. Do we have a plan…F?" _ Haxon suddenly asked casually, taking a moment to search through his memory to see roughly where we were in the string of plans we had been using since our escape from the warehouse.

"Just this one!" I said quickly as I straightened up and flexed my wrists outward, firing the thrusters and stabilizers up to flight speeds. In a flash I blasted up from the floor, jerking several times as Kaidan and Ashley trained their guns on me and began shooting at the suit.

"Wait! Hold fire!" Shepard shouted to them as he moved his arms and swatted both of their barrels down.

"_Axel you do remember the roof right!?"_ Haxon shouted.

"Oh. _Right_, the hole was back over there…" I said suddenly as my memory caught up with me, right before shouting out in pain as the top of my head slammed through the first support structures!

For several seconds this continued until we broke out through the top sheet-coverings of the roof, blasting up through the clear air away from it until I managed to make the suit stop and hover. I had my eyes wedged shut as I slowly shook my aching head to clear the throbbing and earsplitting ring screaming throughout the inside of my skull.

"_Well that went well. We saved Garrus Vakarian and met up with Commander Shepard, our job here is done. So now the next part of our plan should be to head back to the _Corsica_ and wait for Alec, am I correct?"_ Haxon asked after I had stopped wincing from any slight movements in my neck and shoulders.

"No. We need to plot a route to Chora's Den, that's the next place Shepard will be headed once Garrus and Michel tell him about the evidence on Saren," I answered firmly.

"_What! Axel you already know where Shepard is and what he needs to do before leaving the station, why are we risking getting detected and shot down, _again_, when you already have your desired information?" _

"Because that squad of Turian assassins wasn't suppose to be there, and they sure as hell shouldn't have been using technology and weapons from _two_ different universes! Whoever this Master of theirs is he's trying to pull the strings on the events that are suppose to happen here; if he targeted Garrus I'm damn sure he'll target Shepard and the rest of his crew with more of those Death Squads. I just want to be sure that events will go according to plan, we need Shepard alive and functioning if we're going to make it through this conspiracy Garrus mentioned," I explained. I could hear Haxon give another of his sighs as the mini-map popped up in the corner of my HUD again, this time showing a different route that led to an area less than a kilometer from here.

"_And what about the plan to stay out of the way of things?"_ Haxon asked, as I looked it over.

"We're still keeping to that plan, but if there _is_ another one of these squads waiting there then we have to intervene to ensure Shepard and his crew's safety."

With that I changed direction and blasted forward, skimming low across the hull and staying out of sight from the Fast Travel Lanes that crisscrossed overhead. As I began banking in and out around buildings and structures, I opened a link to Forsenski's omni-tool.

"Alec, are you reading me?" I called through the link. But before I could even finish the question I was frowning in extreme confusion at what instantly blasted from the Guardian's end.

"_It ain't me, IT AIN'T ME! I aint no fortunate one, no!"_ the tell tale guitar and drum tune of 'Creedance Clearwater Revival's' _Fortunate Son_ sang out through my helmet's speakers, causing me to cringe slightly from the volume of it.

"Alec?" I called again.

"_YEAAH! Some folks inherit star spangled eyes, ooh they send you down to war, Lord!"_ As more of the song came through, the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and gunship repulsors could be heard going off in the background.  
"_It sounds like he's started the second Vietnam!"_ Haxon remarked over the noises.

"ALEC! Shut the music off!" I roared into my speaker. After a few seconds of the song continuing it abruptly cut off, with a very audible complaint coming through.  
"_Oh come on, right at the beginning of the chorus!"_ Alec's voice whined.  
"Where did you get that anyway?" I asked.

"_You wouldn't believe how many songs Forsenski has on this thing. He's got all of Black Sabbath, AC-DC, and a lot of others; he seems to have been a sucker for the classics! So what can I do you for sir?"_ the Guardian asked as he fired several rounds from the Super-rifle.

"I'm calling to tell you that we briefly met up with Shepard and Garrus…" I began before suddenly getting interrupted by Alec.

"_Oh great! So you'll head back to the ship and I'll meet you there?!"_ Alec said joyfully, sounding quiet relieved.  
"No…I'm heading to Chora's Den ahead of him," I answered in an annoyed manner.  
"_What! Axel you already know where…"_ Alec began, but Haxon had already given me his spiel.  
"_I KNOW!_ Alec, a squad of Turian assassins arrived at the clinic, they were going to kill Garrus and Dr. Michel!" I interrupted angrily.

There was a long pause before Alec answered back.

"_That doesn't happen in the game's plot…"_ he said slowly.  
"Exactly. What's worse is that they were armed with repeating Blaster Rifles used by the 501st, _and_ they had Predator Wrist-Blade devices strapped to their forearms!"

"_How could a group of Turians get their hands on those kinds of weapons, we've only been on the Citadel less than two hours?!"_ Alec demanded in confusion.  
_"Two of those Turians were also cyborgs, and they had a convenient acid system that disposed of any evidence,"_ Haxon explained further for me.

_"This sounds too complex to have been created simply by our arrival. There's gotta be something else at work in this galaxy to bring all those elements together,"_ the Guardian stated.  
"That's why I want to keep an eye on Shepard, at least until he gets the evidence on Saren. If they targeted Garrus I've got a sneaking suspicion that they'll do the same to the Commander and the rest of the _Normandy_'s crew."

"_Alright then, I'm behind you. The Replicators and I will stay out in the open as long as you need. Make sure we don't lose Shepard this early on in the story!"_ Alec shouted over the sound of a missile blast before severing the link between us.

Bringing up the thruster controls, I punched the power up to 120%, rocketing the suit forward across the Citadel's hull three times faster than it had been.

* * *

For a quick twenty seconds I continued like this until we came to the indicated co-ordinates. This time I landed gently on a more solid piece of roofing that was almost on top of the area outside of Chora's Den. Flicking the HUD's vision setting back to thermal imagery, I also added in a semi-X-Ray vision that would allow me to see through the roof.

Down below us was the entrance to Chora's Den, and branching out away from that were two pathways that re-intersected with each other after creating a large square. As I zoomed in to view this area properly, I began scanning across it for any signs of bodily heat signatures or cloaking technology. Most of the signatures I was picking up were from Fist's band of thugs and bodyguards who had begun taking up defensive positions within the club to await Shepard's arrival.

"_It would appear that there are no additional Death Squads awaiting to ambush Shep…"_ Haxon began after I had scanned the entire area.

"There they are!" I interrupted suddenly, pointing down to the opening in the side of the Ward wall that led out onto the square pathway. As I said this, six bodies glowing orange and red stealthily moved onto the pathways, spreading out and taking up positions with three on each one.

"Five Turians…and one Human?" I remarked with a cock of my head as I zoomed in on each of the assassins, noticing the first five of them looked exactly like the ones I had fought with back at the clinic. The sixth however was a large muscular Human, wearing several elaborate pieces of armour that looked completely different from the ones worn by his Turian companions. He appeared to be wearing a skin-tight cap over his head, and also had an ankle length cape hanging down from his shoulders and under one of his armpits. On his forearms were armoured gauntlets that had small sections jutting out from the center to cover over the backs of his hands, both of which seemed to have a small oval gem fixed in the middle.

"_If the last Turian was telling the truth and his Master truly is as powerful as he said, then it shouldn't be completely surprising to see Humans or other races mixing into his supposed army,"_ Haxon said. But I was shaking my head slowly in familiar bewilderment, my eyes widening once again as I focused on this one man. I had seen his kind of armour before on one of my favourite TV shows.

"You wanna see something freaky Haxon? Narrow the rest of the thermal vision and zoom in on this guy's stomach, use the thermal and X-Ray settings on that area only," I suggested with an ironic smirk. The image in my HUD changed as the A.I. followed my instructions, zooming in until the entire view was taken up by the man's armoured torso. Then as the settings changed, the exact thing I had been silently wishing I wouldn't see materialized in front of my eyes.

"_What is _that_?!" _Haxon blurted out as he saw it too.

"_That_ my friend, is a Goa'uld symbiote," I answered as I scanned the small snake-like creature coiled within the center of the man's abdomen. Even while just as a thermal image it was an unsettling thing to behold, with its needle like pincers sticking out of its mouth, and its bulbous little eyes.

"This man isn't Human…he's a _Jaffa_," I stated with apprehension. How could a Jaffa be leading a group of these strange assassins? I hadn't been here long enough for the ring to have brought in one and then somehow place him within a position of authority over these men.

'_He had to have already been in the Mass Effect galaxy long before I ever got here. But how?'_ I thought as I continued to look him over.  
For the next few seconds Haxon began asking me questions about the Jaffa and the Goa'uld nestled in his stomach, leading me to briefly explain to him the premise of _Stargate SG-1_ and the backstory of the Jaffa themselves. I had just begun telling him about the various System Lords when all of a sudden the Jaffa turned to the rest of the Turian squad.

"Turian, kree!" the Jaffa ordered to them, his command being silently answered as each of the squad activated their weapons and crouched behind any cover available.

"_They must know when Shepard will arrive. If we want to stop them before he gets here we'll need to do it now,"_ Haxon said as we watched the invisible assassins ready themselves. I nodded as I quickly moved over to a section of the roof that would give me a good position to drop in from.

"My thoughts exactly," I said offhand before raising an arm and firing into the roof only a few inches away from my feet!

Flame blasted up around me as the beam-blast tore through the metal, causing the rest of the piece I was standing on to buckle underneath the suit's weight. Plummeting down into the interior area with my hands spread out from my sides, I activated the thrusters and stabilizers as I fell within a few meters of the square pathways' guard railings, abruptly hovering over the endless dark chasm that extended far ahead of Chora's Den. As the debris from the roof fell further down into this chasm, giving a shuddering echo throughout the area as it finally landed on whatever was at the bottom, I slowly turned my head and panned across the walkways surrounding me.

"Show yourselves, I know you're there," I stated to the squad as I targeted each of them with the HUD's reticules, changing my vision back to normal afterwards.

There was a moment of still silence when all of a sudden the Jaffa dropped his cloak and appeared out of thin air. There was a series of brief buzzing noises as the five other Turians also deactivated their devices, pixeling into existence with their repeating Blaster Rifles trained on me.

"_Are you sure it's a good idea to be out in the open like this?"_ Haxon asked warily after seeing all the guns being pointed at us. I only smiled slightly at this, flicking open a tab in the HUD that allowed me to activate a small secondary weapon system.

"Don't worry, I got this from a movie."

As I spoke, the astonished looking Jaffa had taken a step forward, resting his hand and arm on the metal railing of the pathway as he looked up at me. He was a young man in his mid-twenties, clean-shaven with dark eyebrows, pretty much as normal appearing as a Jaffa could be. What was odd about him however were his eyes, the irises surrounding his pupils being a bright gold colour!

They weren't glowing like the host of a Goa'uld or Tok'ra's would, but just looked naturally golden as if he had been born with them.

After forcing myself to look away from those eyes, I noticed the mark on his forehead, the one that identified which System Lord he had been raised to. It was a familiar sight to me, a black circle surrounded by a second incomplete one with a bending serpent figure fixed in the center.

"The symbol of Apophis," I stated in realization. Now this whole thing was beginning to make a very slight shred of sense.  
"_You mean the Egyptian Apophis? The Serpent god of the Night?"_ Haxon posed, clearly confused now.  
"I'll tell you more about the System Lords later, but at least now we may have an idea of who this Master of theirs is," I said as the Jaffa and I continued to stare at each other with narrowed eyes.  
"_You think a demon-god, the Snake Apophis, is the one leading these men?"_ the A.I. asked incredulously, clearly not believing it in the slightest.

"The _Goa'uld_ Apophis yes. Remember that the Goa'uld see themselves as living gods, and from what the last Turian said he seemed to make his Master out to be a deity bent on liberating this galaxy through divine intervention. Apophis's profile would fit that mindset, especially if it was intervention through bloodshed. What I still don't get is how he could possibly be in this galaxy in the first place, and with weapons from several universes more powerful than he ever was in the TV show."

"_Maybe he's working with someone else, perhaps a creature or being he discovered in his galaxy that allows him and his Jaffa to travel in-between universes,"_ the A.I. suggested. I cocked an eyebrow, half nodding at that point.

"How did you come to this place?" I demanded down to the Jaffa, thinking I didn't have anything to lose by asking the man the very question to the answers I sought. Immediately however the Jaffa sneered as his left hand moved to his right forearm still leaning on the railing, pulling a familiar serpent shaped pistol weapon from the holster on his gauntlet.

"Not your concern," the golden-eyed man uttered in a low voice as he raised the iconic Goa'uld Zat'ni'katel in his hand. A quick metallic sound came out as the pistol's snake shaped body rose up into its activated form.

"_About that movie you mentioned earlier?"_ Haxon asked after seeing that the situation had gone from bad to worse.

"Yeah. Now seems like a good time!" I quickly nodded in agreement, right before snapping up both my open palms and firing!

Both blasts slammed into the chest of each Turian standing on either side of the Jaffa, sending them slamming into the walls behind them and crumbling unconscious to the floor.

Now came the part from the movie I had been referencing. With a quick flick of the HUD, a four barreled cannon slightly smaller than my palm rose up out of the plating on my right shoulder. Using the information I had gotten from targeting the squad after I had dropped in a few minutes earlier, the cannon automatically aimed and fired three high-speed projectiles at the remainder of the Turian squad on the other pathway.

Just like when Tony Stark had killed four terrorists that had been using human-shields in the first Iron Man movie, each projectile sliced through the visors and into the foreheads of the Turian assassins, killing all three simultaneously before they could fire their blasters at me.

'_Three more dead, I'm really racking up the body count now,'_ I thought with an inward grimace as I watched their bodies lazily flop down onto the floor. Although it always caused me a brief feeling of regret, I had learned a long time ago that killing was the mainstay of a soldier's profession, and the sooner you accepted that the easier it was to move on afterwards. I still never felt comfortable killing people, even people who most others would say deserved death, but I would still do it without a moment's hesitation if the situation warranted it.

"So, do you want to answer my question now?" I asked to the Jaffa with a cocked eyebrow. The man took a quick look around himself, obviously shocked to see that his fellow assassins had been dispatched so quickly. Instead of answering me however, he turned back and snarled in the same animalistic way that the two Turian cyborgs had, snapping up his arm and squeezing the firing mechanism on his Zat-gun!

"Guess not!" I shouted to myself as I snapped up my own arm and fired a blast from my hand. A rapid beeping sound came from the Jaffa's Zat'ni'katel at the exact moment the high whine from the Iron Man's stabilizer weapon sounded out. The two subsequent blue discharges shot past each other in a flash, my blast hitting him in his left shoulder and sending him spinning to the ground with a cry. His sparking electrical blast slammed directly into the suit's upside-down triangular centerpiece, spreading out across my entire chest-plate.

I didn't feel a thing as the arcs of electrical currents flowed from my chest down through my arms and legs, but the suit itself took on a sudden change. Before I could do anything, the control screen for the boot thruster power levels popped up within my HUD, accompanied by a quick loud humming sound as the levels shot up to 300%!

My eyes widened and I yelled out in surprise as the suit's thrusters forcefully blasted me up into the air, shooting me back out through the hole I had created in the roof and into open space once again.

"What just happened?!" I shouted as I tried to regain control of the suit by lowering the thruster levels, which for some reason were refusing to go down.

"_The Jaffa's weapon blast was able to increase the Replicator core's power-levels to over 500%!"_ Haxon shouted. I couldn't help but give an astonished chuckle as I banked the suit down low to the Citadel's hull, still blasting uncontrollably across it at high speeds but remaining out of sight from any passing vehicles.

"Well how bout' that," I added in with a slightly impressed tone.

* * *

Kurath winced from the stinging pain coursing through his left shoulder/pectoral area. The blast from the enemy suit's hand-weapon had crushed a section of the armoured collar plate that surrounded his shoulders and the top portion of his chest, the force of it sending him careering to the floor with several swirls of smoke coming off his body. Grunting as he picked himself up into a sitting position against the solid railing of the pathway, the Jaffa warrior venomously glanced up toward the hole in the ceiling that his enemy had used to descend upon them. Farther away, a clear sizzling sound could be heard coming from the other pathway, signaling that the three slain Turians' internal acid capsules had broken and were now disposing of their bodies and weapons.

Hissing through his teeth as he laid a hand on his injured shoulder, Kurath took a glance at the chronometer wrapped around the underside of his wrist that he had brought with him from the Imperial Palace on Coruscant.

"Too late…" he uttered in silent horror under his strained breaths once he saw the numbers ticking away on the device. Over toward the Ward entrance that led out onto the pathways, Kurath could hear the fading whine of a Fast Transit Taxi landing nearby. Glancing back at his chronometer, the numbers matched up exactly with the predetermined time he had been given before this operation had begun.

His target, Commander Shepard, had arrived.

Looking over at the two other Turians lying unconscious on the pathway near him, the Jaffa felt no sorrow as he trained his still active Zat'ni'katel on one of them and opened fire.  
His Master could not be found out, could not be exposed to the rest of the Mass Effect universe this early on before their glorious crusade had begun in earnest.  
This was his reasoning as he fired three loud blasts into both of the bodies, further stunning, then killing, and then disintegrating them into thin air.

"He's undoubtedly caught wind of his failure to shut up Dr. Michel. By now Fist will be heavily fortified and surrounded by his bodyguards, I say we go in weapons hot," came the Turian voice of Garrus Vakarian from the pathway entrance.  
Kurath bared his teeth as he deactivated his weapon and pressed a button on his mechanical belt. Immediately he disappeared from view as his active camouflage enveloped his body and made him invisible.

Only a second after he did that, the forms of Commander Shepard, Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and officer Garrus Vakarian stormed out onto the pathways, splitting off with two on each one as they advanced on Chora's Den.

"Good thinking. Alenko, weapons on full, watch your spacing," Shepard said to Garrus before calling over to the lieutenant.

"You got it Commander," Alenko answered as they all reached behind their backs and drew their compacted weapons. Kurath bristled angrily as Alenko and Williams quickly and obliviously moved past him, his moment to destroy them having been so close and yet so unattainable. Without the Turians to back him up, he would only have been able to destroy the two of them, but not Shepard and Vakarian before they would have destroyed _him_.

"On three," the Jaffa heard Shepard's distant voice say to the others as they formed up on either side of the club's door. Three seconds went past before the door opened and the sounds of assault rifle fire began to echo throughout the area.

"ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!" one of Fist's bodyguards shouted out from the club as Shepard's squad returned fire.  
"GO! GO! GO!" Kaidan shouted to Shepard and the others as he gave them covering fire, following behind them soon after.

As the firefight began in earnest, Kurath tapped the button on his belt again, deactivating his cloaking device for a second time. Now out of sight from Shepard or any other onlookers, the Jaffa slowly and reluctantly reached far within the folds of his cape toward his back, pulling out a metallic disk of about the same size as his palm.

With as much of a stoic face as he could muster, he clicked a small button fixed to the disk's side.

A small beep came from the device before its flat surface lit up with a deep blue colour. Immediately a 10-inch miniature hologram of a humanoid man materialized within the center of the disk. Wearing a long black cloak that hung around his neck off the backs of his shoulders and reached down to the ankles of his knee-high black leather boots, this man had the cloak's long hood pulled low over his forehead, concealing the rest of his face in pitch-black shadow. He wore black leather gloves with armoured gauntlets of the same colour on his forearms, while a black tunic that looked like it had once belonged to a Jedi Knight covered over his torso.

A flowing but torn sash of black fabric wrapped tightly around his waist, making his impressive bodily physique look even more menacing. Attached to the left side of this sash, the black and silver hilt of a lightsaber hung off his hip, glinting slightly in the blue-white light that illuminated his nearly see-through holographic figure.

For a tense moment that seemed to last for an eternity, the hologram and the Jaffa stared at each other, the dark figure slowly folding his arms but remaining threateningly silent. At this gesture Kurath bowed his head in submission.

"My lord," he stated solemnly to the hologram before bringing his gaze back up.

"_You take a great risk calling me at this time Kurath…"_ the hologram said slowly, with the subtle tone of expectancy and veiled warning. His voice was very deep, course, and resounding, sounding like a darker and more evil version of the voice in which the Great Lord Apophis would speak.

"_What have you to report?"_ the figure finished, his voice and tone unchanging.

"The mission is in jeopardy my lord," Kurath said without any emotion, although some of the colour had begun to drain from his face as he delivered this bad news. The dark hologram said nothing for a moment before responding with a single word.

"Explain_…"_

"The squad sent to eliminate Garrus Vakarian has been neutralized. Both of its augmented officers were killed, while the other four have been taken into custody by Citadel Security," the Jaffa reported.  
"_What of your squad? Has Commander Shepard been eliminated?"_ the figure asked, his dark tone only getting darker and subtly more sharper. Kurath steeled himself, etching his face in stone as he gave what might be his last words.

"No my lord…my men have fallen also."

Immediately two dim orbs flashed within the darkness of the hologram's hood shadow, exactly from where his eyes would be. Suddenly Kurath felt an invisible iron grip crushing around his windpipe, like a mechanical hand was closing its fingers around his neck. Cringing and grunting slightly, the Jaffa dropped his Zat'ni'katel and used his free hand to hold on to his throat, foolishly thinking that he could relieve some of the excruciating pain he was experiencing.

"My lord…" Kurath managed to choke out, the force on his throat increasing as he spoke.  
"_You have failed me Kurath,"_ the hologram stated, his glowing eyes still shining through the darkness.  
"My lord…it was…the Iron Man weapon…" Kurath barely whispered through his choking. The hologram's glowing eyes vanished quickly after hearing that, releasing the hold on the Jaffa's neck simultaneously.

"_Do you mean to say that Tony Stark was able to follow us into this universe after our last encounter?"_ the dark figure demanded coolly.

"No…I do not believe it was Stark…this suit was different from the one he used last time; it appeared to have been created using materials from this universe. There was also something in the voice of its operator, he sounded younger than Stark," Kurath answered after a short coughing fit while rubbing his sore neck. The figure seemed to think this over for a moment before turning his attention back to the Jaffa.

"_Where is this Iron Man now?"_ he asked, still in his dark tone.  
"He fled unexpectedly after I fired my Zat'ni'katel upon him, where he has gone to now I do not know," Kurath answered, once again sober and solemn.  
"_What is the status of the final team meant for the Quarian?"_ the figure asked, changing to another topic suddenly.  
"They are in position and await your final order."  
"_Then leave the area and take command of them, but do not target the Quarian when she arrives,"_ the figure commanded.

"My lord?" Kurath asked, his brow frowning slightly.

"_If Shepard and his squad are too busy being bogged down in a firefight with our forces, then the other assassins already present will be able to kill Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya and take the incriminating evidence of Saren Arterius from her before Shepard can retrieve it."_ Kurath straightened up as he understood.

"Very well my lord, it shall be done." The dark figure seemed to incline toward the Jaffa slightly, as if stressing a very clear point.

"_If you succeed in killing the commander and his crew, you will have redeemed yourself Kurath. If you do not…you know what the consequences will be,"_ the hologram stated in a very cold tone. Kurath bowed his head obediently at this.

"I understand. I shall not fail you again my Master," the Jaffa assured, this time without looking back up. The hologram of the dark man said nothing as the communication device deactivated and the miniature figure faded away into nothing.

* * *

"Well, that was fun wasn't it," I stated with a short sigh of relief as we glided back over toward the area above Chora's Den. After a very rough journey across nearly half of the Wards, Haxon had finally been able to bring the suit's supercharged core back down to its previous levels, which in turn allowed me to bring the thrusters' power under control and spin us around back in the direction we'd come from.

Now several minutes later, I cut the power to my stabilizers and landed in a low crouch on top of the roof of Chora's Den. Scanning ahead, I could see no signs of the Jaffa or the bodies of the Turian assassins on the pathways, all of them having disappeared without a trace. I was slightly apprehensive since I knew full well that my last shots hadn't been enough to kill the Jaffa or those two other Turians, but at least he was now injured and down to only a quarter of his former strength, which would ensure better odds for Shepard and his crew if they ever ran into him during their investigation.

The sounds of people shouting and the buzz of assault rifles could be heard clearly through the speakers in my helmet, the suit's sensors picking up the ongoing firefight between Shepard and Fist's group of thugs playing out just beneath us.

"_Who do you think's winning?"_ Haxon asked as he also listened to the chaos ensuing below.

"Lets take a look before placing any bets," I answered as I restored the HUD's X-ray vision. The metal roof suddenly pixeled away to give us an almost Eagle-Eye view of the club's interior. Several bodies of criminals lay scattered around the area; some of them slumped dead across overturned tables, while others simply lay haphazardly where they had fallen with their weapons still smoking beside them.

Farther up ahead near the short corridor that led on to Fist's private office, another Human thug grunted painfully before dying as he was struck down by a precision burst from Commander Shepard's assault rifle. As the Commander advanced swiftly toward the corridor, Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus followed close behind him, shooting two more thugs dead as they popped out from their covers.

"I'm putting five on Shepard," I said casually as I went down onto one knee to be more comfortable.

"_I think I'll put five on that Krogan coming at them now,"_ Haxon said in astonishment as he looked toward the door at the far end of the corridor. Sure enough, as Shepard and Co. moved into the area, the enormous Krogan bouncer that had turned away Wrex in the game burst out from behind one of the large crates set up near the doors and charged at them with a large Claymore shotgun in his hands. Roaring out a Krogan battle cry, the bouncer fired off a destructive Incendiary blast that forced the commander and the others to duck back out of the corridor.

'_This is so weird. To be here and watching this like I'm some kind of Behind the Scenes character!'_ I thought with an amused shake of my head.

Down below, Shepard gave a quick nod over to Alenko as more shotgun fire exploded into the side of the wall he was leaning behind, his silent order being immediately answered with the lieutenant jumping out from behind his cover and snapping his left arm forward. As he did this, a strong Biotic haze surrounded his body, travelling down his arm and firing out through his fingers in a bright blast of blue energy. The bouncer shouted in anger as the blast slammed into his chest, sending him flying backwards across the corridor and smashing against the door behind him. A sickening crunch sounded out as the Krogan's large humped back broke against it, a smear of blood trailing down behind him as his body crumbled to the floor. The two remaining thugs on either side of the door stood mortified by this gruesome display, allowing Garrus and Ashley to whirl out from their covers and open fire on them. With a single shot to the forehead from Garrus' pistol, and a burst to the chest from Ashley's rifle, the two died in a second without a sound.

With the fight now over, Shepard took point as he and the others moved down the brief hallway toward the bloodstained door.

"It looks like I'll be adding another five bucks to your tab," I said smugly to Haxon as Shepard holstered his weapon and placed his hand on the lock-pad to open the door.

"_Alright touché, but this isn't over yet. Steve's told me a few stories about this Fist character, he's an arm's dealer and drug smuggler with no sense of honour, and he never fights fair,"_ Haxon defended matter-of-factly. Nodding in agreement with that assessment, I focused my attention back on the Commander's team, who had just now come upon two inexperienced looking men pointing pistols at them.

"Stop right there! Don't come any closer!" the sensors in the Iron Man heard one of them order nervously to Shepard as he walked through the doorway.

"Warehouse workers. All the real guards must be dead," Garrus remarked from the back of the group as he summed up the two men.

"Stay back or we'll shoot," the second one ordered, trying to sound more confident than his companion. Shepard was silent for a moment before raising his hand and jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.

"I just killed fifty bodyguards to get in here. What do you think I'll do to you?" the Commander asked in a deliberately casual tone, cocking an eyebrow after asking his question. His words suddenly caused me to frown with sudden attention.

'_That was the dialogue for the Renegade option. I never picked that during this part of the game,'_ I thought with slight worry. What if this Shepard wasn't as much of a Paragon as I had been?

After taking a moment to think his words over, the two warehouse workers relented and lowered their weapons.  
"Uh…well…uh," the first one stammered, looking between Shepard and his partner for some kind of confirmation that this was the right thing to do. The other man however cursed under his breath and flippantly tossed his gun away.

"Aw screw Fist. He doesn't pay us enough for this shit!" the second said as he barged past Shepard and the squad, making his way out of the club with the first man awkwardly following behind him.

I could here Ashley chuckle slightly as she watched the two men leave.  
"I can't believe that worked," she said back to the others. Kaidan looked over to her with a thin smile.  
"Shooting people isn't _always _the answer," he stated with an undertone of humour to his voice. With that, Shepard and the squad moved down the last of the shiny corridor to the sealed entrance of Fist's office, drawing their assault rifles or pistols and charging them to full power.

"And here is where we get to see the last act in the great _Tragedy of Fist_," I remarked in a theatrical voice as Garrus hacked into and unlocked the door's mechanism, allowing Kaidan to open the said door and let the rest of the team storm the room!

"Why do I have to do everything myself? Time to die little soldiers!" I heard Fist's voice shout within my helmet as he began firing on the squad. Bringing my gaze up farther and zooming in on the office, I could see the HUD's image of Fist crouching behind his large desk while blind firing an advanced looking assault rifle over the top. Although the rounds didn't hit Shepard or the others as they took cover behind some wall partitions, the two automated Defense Turrets that rose up from the room's far corners came close to doing so as they began unleashing a deadly barrage of heavy fire, one that nearly tore through the team members' shields whenever they tried leaning out into the open to get a clear shot on the crime-lord.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Fist shouted back to the turrets as he sprung up from his cover and fired openly, keeping Garrus and Shepard pinned down while the turrets focused on Kaidan and Ashley.

"_Maybe I should have put that five down on Fist, he seems to be holding his own,"_ Haxon remarked as the standoff continued. I stroked the metal of the Iron Man helmet's blocky chin, deep in thought as I focused on those two Defense Turrets.  
"Haxon, you're still connected to the Citadel in some way right?" I asked.  
"_Partially yes, that was what allowed me to interface with the security files from the Military Docks so easily."_

"So since you're with me right now, and you're still connected to some of the inner makings of the Wards, you can still interface with some of the technology in this area, correct?" I asked further.

"_I can interface with nearly any Citadel technology that requires a cyberspace control signal, but what would you need to…ohhhhh, I see what you're getting at,"_ Haxon began when suddenly he understood the implications of what I was saying. With an amused smile I nodded down to the office shootout.  
"Would you mind giving the Commander a hand please," I said gentlemanly to the A.I.. There was a brief moment of nothing before the two Turrets suddenly stopped firing, both of them giving a decreasing humming noise before powering down and folding up back into their casings! The fight cut off immediately, with Fist ceasing his firing and frantically looking around himself to find out what had happened to his support.

"No dammit, shoot! Shoot em'!" he shouted hysterically to the inanimate machines, diverting his attention away from the _Normandy_'s squad. Taking this moment to strike, Garrus lunged out from behind his cover and fired a round that pinged loudly off the side of Fist's rifle, making the weapon spiral out of his hands. Coming up right beside the Turian, Shepard brought up his own rifle and fired two rounds into the criminal's left armoured shoulder, causing him to yell in pain as he harshly fell backwards onto the floor.

"Hahaha! BUSTED!" I stated with a laugh of victory at the success of our anonymous contribution to the gangster's downfall.

Holstering his rifle and drawing his red and black side-arm, the N7 and the others advanced on Fist as he painfully tried crawling back across his expensive office carpet toward his former weapon lying several feet behind him. As he continued to crawl, Garrus walked ahead of him and abruptly clamped his large armoured foot on top of Fist's hand after he tried making a desperate grab for the rifle.

"AAHRG! Alright, alright! I surrender please don't kill me!" Fist cried out in pain as Garrus' weight nearly crushed the bones in his fingers. After a nod from the Commander, Vakarian lifted his foot off and stepped aside as Shepard pointed his weapon down at Fist's head.

"Where's the Quarian?" Shepard demanded.

"She's not here. I don't know where she is, that's the truth!" Fist answered quickly with a wince as he held onto his injured shoulder. Ashley put a hand on her hip and cocked an eyebrow in annoyance.

"He's lying," she stated simply. A small scowl formed on Shepard's face as he moved the arm hold his gun an inch to the right and pulled the trigger. A loud thermal round shot past Fist's left ear and lodged itself in the delicate fibers of his carpet, causing several wisps of smoke to rise up from where it had sunk in.

"Nice! I wish I could have done that," I remarked with a slight grin as Haxon and I continued to watch the interrogation as if we were sitting in a theater watching a high suspense movie.

"WHOA! Whoa! Wait a minute! I don't know where the Quarian is, but I know where you can find her!" Fist shouted with a cringe of fright after the shot went past him, throwing up his hands around his face in submission.  
"Then tell us and stop wasting our time!" Garrus barked angrily as he pointed his own pistol down on the crime-lord's quivering head.

"She's not in the club, she said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself," Fist explained as calmly as he could, still keeping his hands shielding a portion of his face as his eyes flicked between the two barrels being pointed at him.

"I thought the Shadow Broker only worked through agents," Kaidan stated down to Fist in a slightly sarcastic tone, as if he already knew the answer to that. Swiftly, Shepard reached down with his free hand and grabbed on to the collar of Fist's armour, pulling him up from the floor and throwing him back against his desk. Fist gasped in pain as he held on to his bleeding shoulder, half leaning half sitting on the desk as the Commander let go of him.

"Keep talking," Shepard said as he took a step back, both he and Garrus still keeping their weapons loosely trained on him. After a few seconds of heavy breathing to calm himself down, Fist took a moment to look at all four of them before speaking in a more normal tone.

"Nobody meets the Shadow Broker. Ever. Even _I_ don't know his true identity, but she didn't know that. I told her I'd set a meeting up…" he began to each of them before wincing in pain from squeezing his shoulder a little too hard.

"But when she shows up, it'll be _Saren's_ men waiting for her instead of his," he finished as he looked at Shepard, a slight smirk forming on his scarred face.

At that I couldn't help but feel a strong feeling of revulsion for this man, more so than I had experienced during the game when I had decided to simply take the Renegade option and kill him.

'_I always thought his character was an exceptional scumbag, that trait seems to have translated quite well into real life,'_ I thought coldly to myself after seeing that expression on his face. Shepard seemed to be thinking the same thing, for immediately after Fist finished explaining the set up, he grabbed the criminal by the collar again and stuck the barrel of his pistol close to the man's forehead.

"Tell me where that meeting is before I blow your lying head off," Shepard demanded coldly, his voice remaining level but vicious in intent.

"Here on the Wards, the back alley by the markets. She's supposed to meet them right now. You can make it if you hurry," Fist explained in defeat, no longer bothering to even try holding anything back.

My eyes suddenly widened as I remembered the meeting location from the game, being in one of the orange-lit alleyways with staircases going through each end just around the corner from here.  
"Speaking of that…" I said suddenly as I stood to my full height and fired up the thrusters/stabilizers, shooting the Iron Man a dozen feet into the air away from the roof.

"_You think another Death Squad could be waiting for this woman?"_ Haxon asked as I turned my head over toward the area where the alleyway would be, just a mere few hundred feet from the entrance to the pathways outside of Chora's Den.

"They've targeted Garrus and they've targeted Shepard. If those two attacks had succeeded then Tali would have been the only person alive who could pin the Eden Prime attack on Saren. Even if they don't interfere with Saren's assassins when they try to kill her, there'll probably still be a squad present just to make sure the job gets done."

"_You even already know her name! Where are you getting this information from?!"_ Haxon asked in bewilderment as I zoomed in and scanned the area with added thermal vision, finding many heat signatures from the markets nearby, but none within the alleyway. Apparently neither Tali, nor Saren's assassins, or even another Death Squad had shown up yet.

"Remember what I said earlier Haxon? I'll explain everything _later!_" I answered harshly while still scanning for any body signatures that might have been approaching the alley. But still there were none.

"I don't suppose you're willing to let me go now?" Fist's voice asked, the sensors in the suit still managing to pick up what was being spoken in the office. As I heard this I turned my head back down to see what was happening.

"Am I supposed to just forget _your_ part in all this?" Shepard demanded angrily as he inclined closer to the crime-lord.  
"Better yet, am _I_ supposed to just forget your part in all this?" Garrus added in with even deeper malice to his voice as he too inclined closer.  
"Hey! I came clean! I told you guys about the meeting! Besides, I've got my own problems now," Fist defended glumly to both the Commander and the C-Sec officer, holding up both his hands in submission.  
"The Shadow Broker wants me dead. I have to disappear. Forget about me, I'm a ghost." Fist lowered his head, finishing this final statement bitterly. Shepard gave a slight 'hum' before holstering his pistol.

Then suddenly he drew back his right fist and slammed it across the side of…Fist's…head!

(Haha! You know, because it's his fist hitting a guy named _Fist!_...what?)

"Seriously. Who names themself Fist? That's about as good as calling yourself Arm, or Foot," I joked to Haxon as I thought on the man's name, getting an audible chuckle from the A.I. in the process. I was actually quite surprised by Shepard's choice, he may have had his fun knocking the criminal's lights out, but he had still chosen to leave Fist alive. Maybe he was a Paragon after all.

Fist's eyes rolled back into his head as he lost consciousness and lazily flopped backwards on top of his desk. After this Shepard looked over to Garrus with a slight smirk on his face.

"_Well, that's one way of settling things without bloodshed,"_ Haxon remarked in an amused tone.

"C-Sec can handle this right?" the Commander asked as he indicated the sleeping criminal before them.  
"I can have agents here in the next few minutes," Garrus said with a nod and a small Turian smile. Behind them, Kaidan and Ashley already had their assault rifles out and ready, having detected a second group of Fist's thugs moving into the club as reinforcements and taking up defensive positions around the entrance.

'_I've got a feeling they won't be happy to find they're not getting their last paycheck,'_ I thought with a quick chuckle as I counted the dozen or so armed criminals now beginning to dot around the club's main area.

"That Quarian's dead if we don't go now," Ashley stated over to the other two.  
"Move out, just like we came in," Shepard said as he drew and activated his own assault rifle.

"_Axel!"_ Haxon suddenly warned. Snapping my head back around, my thermal sensors began picking up four warm bodies, along with a _cold-blooded_ one, moving down one of the flights of stairs into the meeting alleyway. The one leading them was a thin but agile looking Turian, three others were Salarians dressed in full suits of armour, while the fifth colder signature following behind them was a very large and bulky Krogan dressed in a reinforced battle suit that was potted with scratches and scorch marks.

'_There are more of them then there were in the game!' _I thought with apprehension as I eyed the additional assassins. Down below Shepard and the squad had already begun cutting a bloody swath through Fist's remaining men, quickly reducing their number from a dozen down to four.

"_Should we be ready to assist them with the other assassins?"_ Haxon asked once the Commander's team had finished gunning down the last thug.

"We should be ready to help if another Death Squad shows itself, but as for Saren's assassins this is all supposed to happen. Shepard just needs to run down that pathway, over those connecting staircases, and he'll pretty much be on top of the meeting in time to save Tali," I said as I pointed along the path the Commander would need to take after he and the squad burst through the Den's sliding doors, each collecting themselves for a moment before beginning to dash down the shortest pathway available.

"_This must be her coming in now,"_ Haxon stated as he highlighted a section of the alleyway within my HUD. Zooming in on that section, I cocked an eyebrow at the lithe figure that had begun to descend down the second staircase toward the awaiting group.

Immediately I had my eye focused on her, her appearance becoming more and more intriguing with each step.

She looked almost exactly the way she did in the game, with her skintight environmental suit and snug pieces of cloth wrapped around certain sections of her body, which accentuating her obvious curves nicely. Everything about her looked the way it had during the last time I had played Mass Effect 1, and yet better somehow. Her body was now more proportioned and fluid like a living person rather than a video game character, which made her appear even more attractive despite the polarized helmet visor that hid her face. Both my eyebrows slowly rose up in astonishment, and I could feel my head automatically nodding in subconscious approval as I looked over her toned well-kept figure.

"That's her alright," I answered with a crooked half-smile, resisting the faint urge to whistle in impressment.

Tali continued cautiously walking forward until she met up with the lead Turian of the group.  
"Did you bring it?" The sensors barely picked up the Turian's voice from this distance, but it still came through clear enough for both of us to distinguish what was being said. Tali took a quick glance at the Salarians and the Krogan standing several meters away, one of her slender three fingered hands tensing slightly in a reflexive manner that I recognized from my time in the field.

She was preparing herself to reach for the compact pistol attached to the belt strap that went across her waist.

"Where's the Shadow Broker? Where's Fist?" her soft and accented voice demanded from the Turian, sounding very slightly synthesized from the filter of her helmet.

"_Looks like you were right Axel!"_ Haxon suddenly snapped, cutting off the rest of the dialogue. Flicking my eyes back toward Shepard and the crew, I noticed that Kaidan had moved ahead of the others and was now standing at the top of a staircase that was just a few feet away from the main stairs that led into the alleyway. In front of him was a sealed door, which was now opening from the green activation pad that he had just touched.  
However, what Haxon had suddenly noticed were the seven thermal figures that had somehow appeared out of nowhere on the other side, one of them being a large humanoid who at the moment was pointing a snake shaped pistol ahead of himself!

"The Jaffa's back!" I said suddenly as I recognized the other six Turian assassins standing at the man's flanks.

"Kaidan!" Shepard shouted up from the bottom of the stairs once he noticed the seven people appear after the door slid apart. Alenko barely had time to blink in surprise before the Jaffa fired its Zat'ni'katel point-blank into his chest. The lieutenant yelled out in extreme pain as the weapon's discharge enveloped him in sparking arcs of blue electricity that travelled up and down his body. The force of it was enough to sending him tumbling backwards into a harsh fall down the stairs, causing him to land in a heap at Shepard's feet. Immediately before the Jaffa could fire his second shot and kill the lieutenant, Garrus snapped up his pistol and fired a round that deeply skinned the chainmail covering the arm the man was using to hold his weapon. The Jaffa shouted in pain, clamping his free hand over the bleeding wound and staggering back a few steps.

"Turian, kree!" he shouted to the rest of his assassins in Goa'uld, which caused all of them to surge forward to the head of the stairs and begin firing down upon the _Normandy_ squad.

Shepard, Garrus, and Ashley all jumped to either side of the staircase's bottom entranceway, peeking around their covers and firing their weapons back up at the enemy.  
"Get him out of there!" Shepard shouted to Ashley over the reverberating thunder of the Turians' repeating blasters, which were lighting up the area with flashes of blue as they exploded into the walls or flooring around the squad.

"Go, I'll cover you!" Garrus said behind Ash as he peeked his head out overtop of her and fired several shots into one of the Turians' chests, causing the man to yell out as he crumbled backwards.  
Placing her rifle on the ground, Williams went down low and lunged over to Kaidan's unconscious form, which amazingly hadn't been hit by any of the blasts that were raining down around him. Grabbing him by the arms, she heaved his dead weight and dragged him back over toward Garrus, while the Turian and the Commander briefly stepped out from their covers again and shot down a second assassin. However, just as she was nearly finished pulling the lieutenant to safety, another assassin focused his aim on her specifically and opened fire.

Ash yelled in pain as one of the destructive blasts exploded against her left shoulder, blowing off most of its white armour plating and sending her tumbling to the ground with a trail of smoke following behind her!

With instant reflexes, Garrus snapped out his free arm, hooking it around Ashley's waist before she could hit the ground. With his gun still in his right hand, Vakarian flicked up his arm and fired a round that caught into the visor of the assassin that had injured her. Without a sound the round sliced through and exited out the back of his head, causing the Turian's body to go limp and tumble awkwardly down the stairs before slamming on its back next to Shepard.

"I've never seen weapons like these before!" Garrus shouted over to the Commander as he sat the groaning, semi-conscious Williams next to the still sleeping Kaidan.

As this was happening, farther up ahead the group of Saren's assassins had begun looking back toward the end of the alleyway, alarmed by the sounds of battle coming from it. Several of them immediately pulled out their guns and began advancing on Tali, deciding to simply take the information she carried and get out of there.

Now realizing that she had been set up, Tali cautiously backed up a few steps before reaching for her belt-straps and ripping free a small concussion grenade. Priming it with a simple click of her thumb, she quickly raised and flung it into the floor at the Turian's feet. A loud explosion of sparks and smoke flashed out as it detonated, the force of it blinding the unprepared group while at the same time knocking the Turian and two of the Salarians on their asses.

With trained reflexes, the Quarian Engineer drew her heavily modified pistol from her belt and pulled back away from the enraged assassins, ducking into a crouch behind a shoulder-high machine of some kind that was jutting out of the alley's wall.

"_Shouldn't we be helping them?!"_ Haxon asked loudly over the beeping and buzzing discharges of the Jaffa's Zat-gun as he joined in the barrage of blaster fire coming from his remaining men.

"It's too late, we'll probably just get in the way now! Shepard might be able to hold his own through this one though," I said tensely as Shepard downed a fourth Turian with a burst from his rifle before pulling back into cover to avoid an incoming Zat blast.

"But Tali won't last very long without some kind of backup, _she's_ the one we need to help right now!" I said as I watched the young Quarian woman peek her head out from her cover, firing a round into the large Krogan assassin's chest-plate. But the round merely pinged uselessly off his scarred armour, causing the large reptilian alien to merely bellow out a booming laugh as he roughly shoved his Salarian companions out of his way. Reaching for his belt, the Krogan drew out a very large dagger from its sheath. The blade was at least twenty inches long and looked like some kind of nightmarish version of a Bowie Knife. Smiling evilly, the Krogan began slowly and sadistically advancing on Tali, flipping the dagger in the air so that he caught the handle with the blade pointing downward.

My eyes widened and I inwardly shuddered as a broken memory came to me, pieced together from a few lines the tank-bred Krogan Grunt had once said during ME 2.

'_Quarians…you have to work the blade a bit…'_

From the look on this Krogan's face, I had the very unnerving feeling that he was planning on trying to work that blade for more than just _'a bit'_.  
"Not a chance!" I said angrily. If Shepard wasn't going to be able to save Tali, then I _would_! Redirecting my hands, I shot the suit away from the roof of Chora's Den, blasting across the short distance between it and the alleyway.

"_So what's the plan now?"_ Haxon asked quickly.

"What do you think? We burst in there and help her fight off everyone in that alley," I said tersely as we fired up into an abrupt hover over the alleyway's reinforced covering.  
But then suddenly, and very unexpectedly, I got a call.

"_Silver Surfer to Silver Man, come in Silver Man!"_ the voice of Alec burst through the newly opened radio channel that he had just established between my HUD and his omni-tool.

"Alec?!" I shouted with a start, struck completely in disbelief by the timing of this.

"_Hey boss, how's it going?! Just calling to check up and tell you that we managed to ditch the hunting parties for a few minutes…"_ Alec began, but down below I could see Tali slowly backing up out of her cover, firing a barrage of rounds into the dagger wielding Krogan's armour, each shot harmlessly bouncing off or lodging within its plates. She even tried shooting into his exposed head, but a kinetic shield placed within the neckline of his large humped back easily deflected that also.

"Alec this really isn't a good time!" I said as I quickly used the HUD to target a weak point in the roof's structure.  
"_Why what's going on? Was there another team of assassins waiting for Shepard?"_ Alec asked quickly, now turning serious.  
"Yes, and they were being led by a Jaffa loyal to Apophis, but right now he's brought reinforcements and has Shepard pinned down in the alleyways!" I answered, a bead of sweat forming on my forehead as I finally locked onto a weakened structure that the Iron Man's stabilizer weapons could easily blast through.

"_So you're gonna go help him right?"_ Alec asked quickly, easily sensing and matching the urgency that he could hear in my voice. I flicked my eyes back down to Tali, seeing her continue to back up step by step toward the staircase behind her, while frantically dropping her now overheated pistol and pulling out her shotgun from the straps attached to her lower back. With a loud blast, she fired several rounds into the Krogan's armoured abdomen, causing him to grunt and cringe inward briefly as the projectiles tore into his plates. But to her horror he only shook it off with a rumbling chuckle and further advanced on her, the evil smile still on his face.

"NO! Shepard's holding his own right now, it's Tali! The team can't get through and Saren's assassins are about to overwhelm her!"  
"_So you're just going to break in there and blast away?!"_ Alec asked excitedly, all of a sudden oblivious to the seriousness of this whole situation.  
"You got it!" I answered shortly as I snapped up my hand and pointed it down at the weak spot I had found, bringing my palm up to full power.

"_Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! You can't just break in there and blast away like _that!_"_ Alec said hurriedly, causing me to hesitate for a moment.

"You got a better idea? She's about to get murdered for crying out loud!" I shouted to the Guardian as I saw Tali back up until the heel of her three-toed foot hit against the first step of the staircase behind her, causing her to yell in surprise as she harshly fell backwards on to the steps. The Krogan chuckled loudly as he came up close to the stairs, towering over her before using the back of his hand to smack the shotgun out of her grasp as she immediately tried bringing it back up to bear on him again.

"_I do in-fact! You need to break in there and blast away with _STYLE!_"_

Before I could do anything, the prolonged heavy electronic guitar notes of a certain famous song flowed through my speakers, starting from somewhere in the middle of its introduction.

"_I. Am. Iron Man…"_ the distorted voice of one of the singers from Black Sabbath spoke to me, more of the heavy guitar and clear drumbeats following his words.

"You can't be serious?..." I asked as I closed my eyes in annoyance.

"_You sir, are the Iron Man of the Mass Effect Galaxy. Wear that badge with pride and flaunt it in every battle you go through! Now go valiant Knight in Shining High-Tech armour! Save your Quarian damsel-in-distress!"_ Alec said with an amused and high praising voice, as if he were quite proud of his sudden contribution.

"I have no idea where you're going with this and I don't have time to argue about it right now!" I said quickly over the notes of the song as I recharged my outstretched hand and opened fire on the roof. After an explosion of flame I changed the vision in my HUD back to normal and blasted down through the hole, cutting power to my thrusters/stabilizers after I had cleared through the structural supports and dropping the rest of the way into the alley.

Back on the stairway, Tali cringed in pain after the Krogan's three large fingers grabbed onto her throat, slamming her down against the hard steps as he drew back his arm holding the dagger high into the air. Baring her teeth as she struggled against his grip, she quickly brought up her leg that had her thin combat knife strapped to the side and drew it. The Krogan merely laughed again as she defiantly tried stabbing her blade into the armoured forearm holding her down, which she only succeeded in penetrating by a few millimeters.

"Such a waste…" the Krogan rumbled disappointedly as he looked upon her curvy body with a rapacious eye, a small smirk creeping onto his face before he brought the dagger driving down to her chest!

Luckily this was the exact moment that I came crashing through the roof, heavily slamming down and denting the floor in a dramatic Iron Man pose, crouched on one knee with my right fist planted into the metal in front while my left arm extended out to the side further behind me.  
Alec had turned up the volume on the music from his end after I had broken through the ceiling, allowing the rocking guitar and thumping drum beat of _Iron Man'_s opening segment to echo throughout the area and catch the attention of everyone present.

Up ahead I could see the black and red armoured Krogan looking over his shoulder at me in genuine astonishment, my explosive musical entrance making him freeze in place with the tip of his dagger resting on Tali's breast, directly over the area where her heart would be.

With a sneer at seeing how close he had come to killing her, I drew up from the floor and snapped both my arms forward, firing out two powerful bright blue blasts of energy from my palms.

The song's iconic _"Duuuu duu duunaa-du, dunadunadunaduna duu du DU!"_ rocked out from my speakers as both beams smashed into the Krogan's reinforced chest-plate before he could fully turn to confront me. He shouted out as the force of the blasts sent him crashing into the steps off to the side from Tali, allowing her to quickly jump up from the stairs and retrieve her pistol before diving behind more cover.

"Kill this thing!" the Turian assassin shouted to the Salarians from behind me, the sound of him charging forward following soon after.

"_Has he lost his mind…Can he see or is he blind…Can he walk at all, or if he moves will he fall?!"_

Black Sabbath's lyrics sang out as I launched a backward elbow strike, catching the Turian in the middle of his white and black painted face. The force of the strike disoriented him greatly, causing him to stop abruptly and wobble backwards like a drunkard while holding onto his newly broken nose. As the lyrics continued, I grabbed hold of the lapels on his jacket with one hand and lifted him three feet off the ground. Using the suit's super-strength, I drew back my arm and pitched the screaming man head-first all the way up the flight of stairs in front of me, making him smash into the wall of the larger white corridor that went across it up above us.

The guitar and drum tune continued as the three Salarians fired at my backside with Kessler pistols, causing me to grunt and stagger forward from their impacts. Spinning around, I raised my right arm and pointed it at the nearest of the assassins.

"_Is he alive or dead?...Has he thoughts within his head?...We'll just pass him there, why should we even care!" _

One after the other, I fired and struck down the Salarian to my right, then flicked to the one on my left, before shoving both my hands forward and firing two parallel beams into the chest of the third and final one. The drums had begun playing a wicked number alongside the constant guitaring as I slowly relaxed, looking between each of the three as they lay moaning on the ground in pain.

"Watch out!" I heard Tali's voice shout over to me. Suddenly the unmistakable guttural roar of a Krogan rose up over the music, the stomping of armoured feet going right along with it. Gritting my teeth as I clenched my right fist, I side stepped out of the way and swept my arm backwards when the Krogan came within striking distance. The sweep caught the assassin in the neck, clotheslining him hard and making his body do a full slow motion forward back-flip in the air from the continuing momentum, which was pretty impressive considering his enormous height and bulk. With a harsh landing that made even me wince slightly, the Krogan smashed down face first into the floor on his front after completing his flip, quietly groaning afterwards.

Reaching over, I grabbed onto his large armoured shoulder and tried flipping him over. However the Krogan suddenly did it for me, latching the fingers of his left hand around my wrist as he threw himself up onto one knee, bringing his right hand that was still brandishing his upside down dagger into a deadly swipe toward my abdomen!

"Ahh!" I yelled out as I jumped backwards, ripping my hand free of his as the blade sliced across me, making several sparks flash as the metal of the weapon met with that of my scorched armour. With brutal speed the Krogan lunged up from the floor with the dagger held high above his head, ready to bury it through my own. Baring my teeth in concentration I snapped up my left hand and caught his descending wrist before the weapon could hit me. Before he could use his other hand to retaliate, I smashed the open palm of my right hand into the bottom of his elbow, breaking his arm with a loud crunch. The man roared out with rage as the intense pain hit him, causing him to instinctually loosen his grip and allow the dagger to fall to the floor with a clatter. However this didn't stop him in the slightest.

Immediately I found myself grinding my teeth in pain as he used his other hand to lurch forward and grab my neck in a steel vice-grip. Roaring out again, the Krogan charged toward the machine that Tali had taken cover behind, roughly pushing me ahead of him until I shouted out when my back slammed into the device protruding from the wall!

An explosion of sparks shot up as the suit's hull crushed through the machine like it was tinfoil, causing Tali to recoil away from us and dive off to the side before smoke and flame began to shoot up around my body.

"_He was turned to steel…In the great magnetic field…When he travelled time, for the future of mankind!" _

The song's lyrics started up again, beginning after the constant drums and guitar strings that had been playing throughout the fight. My eyes were widening as I heard another sickening crunching sound coming from the Krogan's broken arm, the shattered bones knitting back together as his natural regenerative abilities began to kick in.

"Regenerate this!" I grunted in a raspy voice before slamming one of my open palms against the side of the Krogan's face and firing a blast from its weapon. A flash of blue sparks shot up along with the sound of sizzling flesh, causing him to scream in pain and release me.

"_Nobody wants him. He just stares at the world!"_

With another grunt I raised a leg and slammed it into his gut, causing him to fly backwards and smash his back hump into the other identical machine across from me. Growling angrily after tearing his hand away from his smoking face, the mad Krogan scowled at me as he pushed himself off of the dented and sparking device he had crushed, his arm now fully healed.

"Come on! What the hell is this guy made out of!" I asked to no one in horrified astonishment as I looked over the relatively small scorch mark my weapon had seared across the area around his eye socket and cheekbone.

Slamming his fists together in anger similar to the way Grunt would do, the Krogan charged me head-on, leaning forward slightly like a bull pointing its horns. I suddenly found myself doing the same, both of us roaring out as we clashed with one another. For a while the sounds of our armour smashing against each other went along well with_ Iron Man_'s guitar and drums, our fists and feet punching and kicking in sync with more of the song's lyrics, both of us shoving or throwing each other back and forth into the two wall machines we were positioned in between, breaking and crushing them even further with sparks and fire exploding outward.

Finally I managed to swipe an uppercut into his pointed chin, making him stagger backwards and allowing me enough room for a better shot. But instead he recovered quickly and caught my next punch in his hand!

His natural brute strength was almost as powerful as the cyborg Turian I had fought with back at the clinic, forcing me to strain my muscles in order for the suit's strength to barely push him back slightly. Immediately however I doubled over slightly from a painful body shot he had sent into my abdomen with his other fist, allowing him to grab onto my chest-plate with both hands and lift me into the air over his head!

"This isn't going as well as I plannnnnned!" I yelled out right before the Krogan roared and threw me across the alleyway as if he was pitching a spear. I scoffed in pain as I slammed down onto the alleyway tiles and rolled violently into the corridor's opposite wall, smashing to a stop on my front right beside one of the Citadel's Keepers.

"_Nobody helps him. Now he has his revenge."_

I groaned weakly as I shook my head and glanced up in front of myself. The strange green insectoid creature had barely flinched during this entire showdown, and even now as Black Sabbath's final guitar and drum solo blasted out from my speakers it merely blinked its huge black eyes while continuing to work away at its glowing orange console.

"How can these things be so calm through this kind of stuff?" I couldn't help but ask out loud as I gestured to the Keeper.  
"_No one knows a lot about them, they merely work to maintain the Citadel and…"_ Haxon began trying to explain informatively despite the situation. However the shouting of the Krogan quickly cut him off as the assassin began charging across the alley towards us.

"But we do know that they explode if they're ever interrupted, right?!" I asked quickly as I struggled to push myself up onto one knee.

"_They do, there's a three second delay before…oh no! No, you _wouldn't_!"_ Haxon began urgently before suddenly realizing why I was asking the question. Snapping my head from the nearing Krogan back to the Keeper, I gave a wicked grin.  
"Yes I would!" I answered instantly before reaching over and grabbing onto one of the Keeper's back legs, causing the creature to screech in fright and thrash its limbs as I drew it up over beside me.

"Yo Toaster Face, CATCH!" I shouted at the burned Krogan before flinging the Reaper engineered alien with all my super strength, sending it flipping end over end like some kind of large throwing knife with arms!

"Shit!" the Krogan cursed before dropping down heavily onto his stomach, very surprised by my incredibly unorthodox strategy. My improvised Keeper Grenade just barely passed over the assassin's large back hump as he dropped out of the line of fire, the alien exploding in a ball of flame and smoke the second it hit the floor behind him.

(The Keeper Grenade…now THAT's gotta be put in the Codex somewhere!)

Off to the side I could see Tali down on one knee in front of the staircase, her shotgun back in her hands and brought up to her visor. At the moment however she was hesitantly flicking the barrel of the weapon back and forth between the Krogan and myself, wanting to blow the assassin away but at the same time unsure if I was truly on her side, seeing as how she had no idea what I actually was.

"Stay there!" I shouted over to her, pointing a commanding finger to stay put as the Krogan lunged back up to his feet.

Still roaring, the Krogan and I charged at each other again, this time striking and locking one of our fists into the other's grasp. Both of us growled into each other's faces like a pair of rabid wolves, slowly straining back and forth as we pushed our arms and the full weight of our bodies forward.

Quickly I broke the stalemate by arching my neck and slamming my helmet into the assassin's plated forehead, remembering this symbolic Krogan move from what memories I had of Wrex doing the same thing to Gatatog Uvenk in ME 2. It was a very obvious addition of insult to injury, and luckily it seemed to have the desired effect of enraging the Krogan to the point of insanity. He snarled and ripped himself free of me before blindly lashing out, his rage making him abandon all logical thought. Dodging to the side and letting the Krogan's wild jab flash in front of me, I grabbed his exposed wrist and pulled him and the rest of his arm into an incapacitating hold so that it was reversed behind his back. Several harsh pops came out of the man's elbow and shoulder as I pulled it up further behind him, while at the same time wrapping my other arm around the thrashing assassin's neck.

Now that I was in nearly complete control of his body, I used all of my weight to spin myself and the struggling Krogan around so that we were facing toward the rear staircase that led back up to where the Jaffa and his remaining Turians were still doing battle with Shepard. Thrusting my hand forward, I let go of his neck and shoved him ahead of me with an increase of super strength. The insane Krogan landed in a skidding sideways roll amongst the unconscious bodies of the Salarian assassins lying in front of the stairs, scoffing and roaring like a pre-historic animal. As he began pulling himself up to his feet, he looked over to the nearest Salarian beside him and immediately lunged out a hand, ripping an un-used frag grenade from the other man's belt.

Clicking the center button that set the explosive on a timed detonator, the Krogan roared and charged at me again for the umpteenth time, raising the beeping device high above his head.

He was planning on blowing both of us up!

"Haxon! Full offensive power to the chest-piece!" I ordered quickly as I spread my arms and my stance and stood before my mad enemy in the very middle of the alleyway.

"_Heavy boots of lead…Fills his victims full of dread…Running as fast as they can…" _

_Iron Man_'s final set of lyrics shouted out as a low humming sound ran throughout the suit, accompanied by a series of soft lights briefly glowing from in-between the overlapping plate sections that made up the torso.  
With a great mighty blast that blinded everyone in the corridor and made me stagger slightly from the force, the glowing upside down triangle fixed in the center of my chest-plate brightened up and fired a single destructive burst upon the Krogan.

"…_Iron Man lives AGAIN!" _

The last lyrics accompanied the assassin's scream as the blast hit him full on in the front, its power being enough to blow the entire front portion of his armour wide open and send him flying backwards before smashing into the staircase behind him. A massive explosion followed immediately after this as his dead hand fell limp onto the steps, setting off the grenade and vapourizing most of what was left of his broken sizzling body.

"I'm definitely gonna feel this in the morning…" I said with a wince as I rotated my arms, hissing quietly from the bruising that had already begun developing around the areas of my body that the Krogan had punched or kicked at.

"Okay Alec, you can turn off the music now," I called to the Guardian through the radio link that _Iron Man_'s exiting guitar tune was still playing through. Thankfully the tune abruptly cut off, allowing me to hear properly again without its high volume constantly blaring in my ear.

"_So you got em' all?"_ Alec asked afterward. Scanning across the three unconscious Salarians sprayed out across the floor, and the chard remains of the Krogan nestled within the smoking half of the staircase, I gave a brief shake of my head.

"They won't be getting up after that," I responded affirmatively.

"_And you also managed to save Tali right?"_ Alec asked quickly, since he didn't actually know the outcome of the whole reason why I had dropped in here. Giving a half smile, I turned around to face the staircase behind me, seeing Tali now standing up in front of it. Her shotgun was slightly lowered now, and her tense posture had begun to relax after seeing that I wasn't coming after her. My smile widened a bit as she cocked her hooded head to the side slightly, clearly intrigued by my worn but advanced looking suit as she looked me up and down.

"Yeah, I think she'll be safe now, especially when Shepard finally get's down here," I answered softly as I took in her appearance as well, still somewhat mesmerized by how beautiful she actually was even without having to see her face or any kind of skin.

Now that I could look at her without having to see through a distorting thermal vision, or having a very angry Krogan beating me to a pulp, I immediately began noticing subtle features that I hadn't seen even in the game.

The sleek pieces of armour and wiring that went up her right arm, along with the greaves wrapped around her backward bowed shins were very ornate, richly detailed with small etched-in Quarian symbols and graceful swirling patterns that looked similar to ancient Celtic designs from Earth. The patterns on her hood and on the pieces of cloth that wrapped around her hips and chest were also richly decorated with intricate intersecting lines, making the entire thing very elaborate. The cloth itself was also intriguing, for as she relaxed even more and moved her body the line patterns seemed to shift and shimmer slightly in the alleyway's orange light, while their deep blue colour seemed to change to a deep purple and then back to blue again.

"_Axel, your mouth is open,"_ Haxon said with an amused undertone in his voice as I continued to stare. I chuckled with a wide grin, conceding to that with a few nods.  
"I don't doubt it, the Quarians really are something to look at," I said with a small gesture over to Tali, unintentionally causing her to glance down at her appearance in confusion.

Suddenly that was when I clued in to the sounds of blaster and Zat-gun discharges still coming from the staircase behind me. Shepard was still in danger.

"Anyway, we'd better go help the Commander and then bounce out of here before the rest of C-Sec comes to find out what all the noise is about," I said quickly to Haxon before spinning around. Suddenly the sounds of missile explosions and cannon fire began pouring through my speakers from Alec's still active radio channel.  
"_Oh don't worry about that, I'd say we've got the entire damn fleet back on our tails again!"_ Alec shouted humourously to me over the sounds, the deep groan of the Replicator Spider Ship accompanying his words soon after.

"Wait!" an accented voice called after me as I began making my way over to the smoking staircase. Cocking an eyebrow in surprise, I stopped and turned around to see Tali holding up one of her three fingered hands after me.

She was about to say something else, when suddenly my blood turned cold with dread as I looked up a bit farther behind her.

Struggling to pull himself up to his feet against the white corridor's far wall, smearing it with the blue blood covering his hands that he had gotten from holding together his shattered face and nose, was the Turian assassin!

Turning around and leaning his back against the wall, the blood soaked man bared his teeth in extreme pain, two of which had been shattered out of his mouth after I had thrown him into that said wall. As he did this, his left hand dropped to his side and ripped a pistol from his belt. In the blink of an eye he activated it and leveled the barrel on Tali's unprotected backside.

"NO!" I yelled out in desperation, sprinting wildly toward Tali with every ounce of speed the suit could give me. But it was nowhere near enough.

The assassin pulled the trigger, firing a single round that impacted into the middle of her lower back with a sickening slicing sound.

Tali gave out a brief yell of pain; the glowing silver eyes I could see through her polarized visor disappearing as she wedged them shut, the pain and force of the shot making her torso arch back before she dropped her gun and limply fell forward, seemingly dead!

Dropping and sliding across the last of the floor on one knee, I caught her close to my chest before she could hit the ground, the Iron Man's large arms wrapping around her slim body and cradling her tightly.

With instant reflexes fueled by an anger so strong it was pushing dangerously close to activating the Rage within the ring, I held on to Tali's slumped form with my right arm while snapping my left hand over to the center of the alleyway.

Still lying where it had fallen during our fight, the Krogan assassin's large dagger flung into the air from the floor as the ring lit up within my right hand's armoured glove-piece, summoning the weapon into my outstretched palm. Catching it by the handle after it had soared toward me in a flash, I turned back to the Turian assassin at the top of the stairs and hurled it with my entire suit induced might.

The spinning blade was a blur, traveling up the entire staircase in half a second before burying itself straight into the Turian's chest, skewering through his heart and stabbing into the wall behind him. The assassin gave a very brief choking gasp of pain before dying, his body going limp and hanging off of the wall with the knife hilt sticking out of his breast.

"_What happened?!"_ Alec asked immediately after hearing the scuffle, his usually upbeat voice now completely humourless. Breathing quickly as I placed my right hand behind the back of her head, I brought Tali's face closer to mine, my eyes searching through the cloudy blueness of the visor for the telltale glow of hers. Faintly I could see two silver slits appear within her helmet, but I could also just make out the sudden flutter of her hooded eyelids and could hear the sporadic shallow intakes of breath coming from her helmet's filter. She was going into shock!

"She took a hit! Shepard's still fighting in the alleyway and I don't have any medi-gel on me!" I answered quickly, looking desperately toward the other staircase in the hopes that I would see Shepard descending down at any moment.

"_It wouldn't matter Axel, her suit has been breached. Right now thousands of micro-bacteria have probably already infested the wound,"_ Haxon stated, trying to sound helpful. I could feel Tali's body begin to quiver in my arms, faint convulsions beginning to rack her abdomen as her condition started to worsen.

Re-adjusting myself so that my entire right arm was hooked around the back of her shoulders, I made the faceplate of my helmet rise up, revealing my real face to her.

"Tali? Tali'Zorah can you hear me?!" I demanded, speaking loudly so that the sound of my voice would break through the shock induced fog she was surely experiencing within her mind at the moment. I reached down and picked up one of her trembling hands in my left, cupping her palm within my own and squeezing it gently to give her something reassuring to cling off of. Immediately her shaking subsided slightly as her fingers curled firmly around mine, the silver glow of her eyes enlarging slightly as she opened them further.

I doubted that she could see me very clearly, probably just as a shadow or a silhouette from the shock she was still enduring, but at least she was now aware that she wasn't dead yet. However if I didn't get her some help soon that assessment was going to become a reality.

"_Axel there's nothing we can do, the round clipped a portion of her spine and caused major internal damage. She is going to die,"_ Haxon said softly, quiet regret obvious in his voice. I was shaking my head as I looked deep down into Tali's semi-focused eyes, refusing to believe the A.I.'s words. There had to be something I could do.

"Don't you dare clock-out now. Shepard needs you. This galaxy needs you!" I hissed down at her, squeezing her hand and shoulders tighter. But I could tell she was fighting a losing battle, her shakings were coming back even stronger now, and she was beginning to give out short moans of pain, fearfully whispering broken words in the Quarian language. She was gripping my hand very tightly now, her shaking making my entire arm quiver in sync with hers.

"_I'm losing her life signs!"_ Haxon reported quickly as the silver of her eyes disappeared, her head lolling to the left into the crook of my arm as she lost consciousness. However her grip on my hand remaining firmly locked in place.

I was breathing raggedly, adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins. She couldn't just die like this; she was one of the pivotal characters that had made Mass Effect MASS EFFECT!

She was needed on the _Normandy_; she was needed to help Shepard. She was one of ME 2's fricken Love Interest's for crying out loud!

(Could this be the end? Could Tali be killed off this early?! Can Shepard defeat the Reapers without her?! WILL THE ECONOMY EVER GET BACK UNDER CONTROL?!…..yeah forget the economy)

Suddenly a thought occurred to me, a stupidly obvious thought.

"Wait a minute. Back in the park the ring healed my cracked ribs without me even thinking about it…" I began silently to myself before immediately using the radio link still open within the HUD system.

"Alec are you still there?" I called out to the Guardian, really just talking to thin air since my faceplate was still open.  
"_Yeah I'm here, we're finally not getting shot at…DAMMIT!"_ he began before a barrage of thermal rounds screamed out from my speakers.  
"_Alright I take that back! How's she doing?"_ he asked tensely after firing several of his own rounds back at C-Sec.  
"Not good. Alec, the ring was able to heal me back in the Presidium park, can I use it to heal _other_ people?" I asked quickly, looking back down at the shaking woman nestled against me. Her grip on my hand was now beginning to loosen. We were losing her!

"_Well yeah, of course you can…"_ Alec began answering.

"Good! Cause' I'm doing it now!" I responded quickly as I began focusing my mind on what I wanted the ring to do.  
"_But Axel there's a catch! In order to heal her the ring is going to take a large portion of your life-energy and transfer it into her body! If you can heal her wounds in a short time span then it'll only leave you feeling drained for a few minutes before you recharge, but if you stay connected to her for a prolonged period it can suck the life right out of you!"_

Alec's finishing statement caused me to hesitate for a moment, but only for a moment before my face hardened into a grim expression.

"It's either I briefly give up a piece of my life to save her, or she dies here and now in my arms. The decision's already been made," I said flatly before tightening my grip on her hand, summoning the ring's power completely.

As I felt the ring light up, several lines of bright silver that looked similar to blood veins suddenly appeared and travelled through my left hand into hers, snaking their way down her arm and moving around her torso toward the injured area on her lower back.

Immediately I began feeling what Alec had warned me about. I gave a sharp intake of breath as a tightness suddenly gripped my heart and lungs, slowly squeezing inward as more and more of the silver lines ran down Tali's body. Straining myself as best as I could, I poured more of the ring's healing power into her, causing the pain I was feeling to increase ten-fold.

"_Her spine is knitting back together! And the bacteria in her bloodstream is disappearing!"_ Haxon said in astonishment, clearly mystified but overjoyed at this development. Painfully looking down on Tali, I was pleased to see that her shaking and convulsions were stopping, but her breathing hadn't returned to normal and her eyes hadn't opened again. I still had to finish healing the rest of her internal damage. Gripping her hand even tighter for my own reassurance now, I bared my teeth and pushed the ring even harder, causing me to slowly gasp in tremendous pain as something sharp slithered through my veins. It was almost exactly like what had happened to Wolverine and Rogue at the end of the first live-action X-Men movie, with the veins running through my face and hands bulging noticeably from whatever the ring was transferring between Tali and me.

Suddenly her body tensed and her chest arched upward as she gave out a tremendous gasp for air, her silver eyes snapping open and flitting about wildly. Her grip on my hand had tightened to match that of mine, both of us holding onto each other as if our lives depended on it. Which at the moment they probably did.

"_Axel! Axel now _your_ life signs are dropping! You've already healed all the damage, you can let go of her now!"_ Haxon said urgently into my ear as Tali's chest began to rise and fall rapidly, rapidly but within normal adrenaline induced breathing limits, showing that her lungs were working properly again. I grunted weakly as I buckled over her slightly, my strength leaving me faster than I thought it would.

"Not yet…just one more…thing," I wheezed out, putting enough energy into one final transference. Even if her body had been completely healed, it wouldn't do her much good if she were exposed to the outside air from the bullet hole still in the back of her suit.

"_The threads and sealing of her suit are closing back together, this is incredible!"_ Haxon remarked in further astonishment, his proper logical mind coming up with no explanation for how the ring was also repairing Tali's environmental suit. Finally, after the last threading was folded back into place and the Quarian suit was restored back to its original state, I stopped the healing process and caused the pulsing silver lines connecting us to disappear.

I panted deeply as I felt the tightness in my chest begin to recede, the incredible pain in my veins dulling down to a mere tingling. I shook my head dizzily, feeling extremely tired and worn out. Looking down at the woman still lying in my arms, I couldn't help but give a thin smile as her glowing eyes began to blink rapidly, as if she too were experiencing some light-headedness.

"Better?" I asked shortly down to her as her eyes focused in on mine, still not feeling quite strong enough to speak very much.

However, immediately after her vision cleared and she had managed to focus on my face, her eyes shot wide open and she ripped her hand out of mine. With instant reflexes she rotated her wrist and caused a glowing yellow omni-tool to envelope her forearm, the round hand section sparking for a moment before she sharply drove it up into the bridge of my exposed nose between my eyes!

"AARRRHH!" I shouted in pain as an arc of yellow electricity sparked out across my skin, a burning sensation flaring up from the point of contact. Harshly dropping her haphazardly as I staggered up from the floor, I held on to my smoking face with one hand before blindly spinning around a few feet and falling back down onto one knee again.

"_What's happening?!"_ Alec's voice called in concern after hearing my shout.

"Arrg dammit!" I bit out venomously to myself as I kept my armoured hand covering over my face, the smell of singed eyebrow hair rising up with the faint swirls of smoke rolling off the bridge of my nose.

"'_Arrg dammit' doesn't sound very good, what's going on?!"_ Alec called frantically again.

"She just zapped me in the _FACE!_" I shouted in astonished angry confusion, my drained strength returning faster than normal as my anger and exhaustion began to bring up some surface emissions of the Rage from within the ring.

I had to calm down now or else I would fall into a mindless Berserker state, which would most possibly make me hurt Tali after I had just used up most of my energy bringing her back from the brink of death!

"Who are you?" Tali's voice demanded over to me. Baring my teeth as I powered up the stabilizer weapon in my left hand, I spun around and trained my arm on her.  
She had scrambled over to the foot of the stairs and was now slumped lazily against several of the steps, apparently still not balanced enough after what the ring had done to her to stand up right. In her hands was her retrieved shotgun, being pointed loosely at me. She noticeably flinched in surprise and raised her weapon even higher in readiness as I aimed my glowing palm at her, my look of obvious anger making her more wary of me.

However, as we remained in a tense standoff, something odd happened to me. My brimming fury sudden faded as I looked into her eyes, their deep silver glow causing me to feel slightly relaxed and immediately less intent on harming her.

It still wasn't enough however to diffuse the extreme annoyance I felt toward her sudden attack on me, or to dull the stinging pain still coming from the bridge of my nose.

"Lieutenant Axel Kaae Sorenson of the Canadian Armed Forces, and the man who just saved your ungrateful life! Who the hell are _you?_" I asked aggressively to her, still keeping my arm up but wincing my eyes closed after another spike of pain stung at me.

"_Wait, you already know who she is,"_ Haxon whispered quietly so that Tali wouldn't be able to hear.

"Apparently not…" I uttered back sarcastically under my breath as I used my other hand to lightly massage the newly tenderized spot between my eyes.

"My name is Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya of the Migrant Fleet. Please Mr.…Sorenson, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to harm you badly with that last attack," Tali apologized as she cautiously raised her left hand with her palm open, taking a moment to pronounce my name properly.

I flicked my eyes open and looked over at her with a severely incredulous frown.  
"Didn't mean to harm me? Well you did a pretty good job of that anyway lady," I stated to her with a wince, using the tip of my armoured finger to tap at the sore spot between my eyes. Tali nodded slowly and slightly lowered the barrel of her shotgun, raising her other hand a little higher in a sign of surrender.

"I know, and I do apologize for that. It's just that when I came to and I saw your face…it…it startled me," she said sincerely, giving her own wince of discomfort as she tried re-adjusting her self to sit on the steps, giving small short gasps of breath as if she were having a moderate amount of difficulty moving.

Most likely my healing powers had left her back muscles feeling sore or pulled, since they had just been forcibly healed back together after a gunshot wound.  
With that thought in mind I reluctantly shut down my weapon and came over to her, offering a hand to which she accepted.  
"Thank you," she said as I gently took her other arm and carefully helped her up from the floor, sitting her down just as gently with her torso and legs lying vertically across the bottom steps of the staircase.

"How's the back doing?" I asked as I went down on one knee in front of her, handing back her shotgun that I had taken so that she could stretch her arms out a bit better.  
"Mmmmm, much better. After I felt the shot hit me I thought for sure I wasn't going to make it," Tali uttered out in relieved bliss as she raised her arms over her head and stretched her back out, causing several pops to sound out from her newly mended spine.  
"You nearly didn't. If another minute had gone by you might have been beyond my ability to heal," I added in with a nod down to her slim waist and abdomen, indicating the internal damage I'd fixed other than her spine.

"Then I guess I have to thank you double for saving my life twice. But how did you manage to keep my wound from getting infected, or fix the damage done to my suit?" she asked with sudden apprehension as her hand reached behind and began feeling the area of her back that the thermal round had impacted through.

My eyes widened slightly and my eyebrows twitched uncomfortably. There was no way she was going to believe the truth if I told her.

"Errm…lets just say I used the same thing that brought _this_ suit into my possession," I stated awkwardly to her, sweeping a hand around my chest area to indicate my scorched Iron Man suit.

Tali cocked her head slightly in confusion, preparing to protest or ask a highly complicated engineer's question about the suit, but I quickly interrupted her.

"So you said that when you woke up after I healed you, my face startled you somehow?" I asked her with a small frown. I mean I knew I wasn't the sexiest man alive, but I had always thought I had at least a _few_ good looks.

"Well no it wasn't your face really, it was..." Tali began, suddenly hesitating as she thought on how to word the rest of the sentence. I frowned even more, now becoming further confused by her reaction.

"…It was your eyes," she said finally, giving a small shrug after failing to find a better way to say it. My frowning eyebrows shot up in surprise at this.

"My eyes? What's wrong with my eyes?" I asked suddenly, only now realizing that I hadn't looked in a mirror since before I had even found the ring in the first place. What if it had changed my appearance somehow, and Alec hadn't mentioned it because he assumed I already knew? But right away Tali raised a hand in light defense, as if trying to immediately belay my fears.

"Oh nothing! There's nothing wrong with them, they're just…" she began quickly before focusing intently on me, as if trying to be sure she was seeing something clearly.

"Well…they're _blue!_" A small tone of fascination could be heard slipping into her soft synthesized voice, her head very slightly inclining closer toward me as she pulled herself up into a straight sitting position, her gaze looking deep into my said eyes.

I was silent for a moment, confused once again by her statement until finally the realization struck me. A small smile formed on my face as I cocked my head slightly in surprise.

"Are you saying that you've never seen blue eyes before?"

Tali shook her head immediately, holding our gaze intently as she studied every detail she could see within my light blue irises.

"Never on a Human before, no. I've only been on the Citadel for a short time and have met only a handful from the C-Sec Academy. The ones that I did meet mostly had brown or green eyes, but no blue ones," she answered, her own eyes shining with interest. This caused my eyes to automatically widen, eliciting a surprised intake of breath from Tali as she inclined closer to me like a scientist discovering something new through a microscope, shortening the space between us. My coy smile had turned into a sheepish grin and I could feel a slight warmth rising up in my cheeks. I was never one to be shy around new people, but with the way she was looking at me now I was beginning to feel more than a bit bashful.

"Uhm…well, Asari have blue eyes don't they? It can't be too surprising for you to have seen this colour before on a person with Human-like features," I said with a small half chuckle lacing through my words, trying to down play some of her interest. But she merely shrugged again and continued to gaze, inching even closer to me.

"Sure, but Asari all have _female_ Human features. I've never seen a _man_ with these eyes before. They look so startling and yet, intriguing, especially on you…" Tali was saying, her glowing eyes still fixed on my blue ones while also briefly glancing around my face, now taking in every detail of my features. But then suddenly she blinked, her voice abruptly catching in her throat as she realized what she was saying.

"I…I mean you look…they look…" she stammered, her voice now sounding embarrassed.

"I meant they're…they look good on you," she ground out, making her head look down immediately after. It had to have been my imagination, but from the short distance between my face and her visor I could have sworn I saw the faint parts of her cheeks that were visible darken to a different shade of blue.

Was she blushing? No it couldn't be, we'd barely just met each other. More than likely she was simply getting infuriated with herself at having slipped up in front of a complete stranger.

Still, that thought didn't dissuade me from taking advantage of the situation, even if I was still only a stranger to her. I mean come on, she had just complimented me, so it was only fair for a gentleman to do the same for her.

"Thank you," I said with a flattered tone, putting on one of the most handsome smiles I could manage. Reaching up a hand, I gently placed my fingers under her helmet's chin and lifted her gaze back up to meet mine.

"I'll let you in on a secret. You're the first woman I've met who's had shining _silver eyes_, and I hope you don't mind if I say, they look _very_ intriguing on you," I said in a friendly voice to her, leveling my blue irises with her silvers.

Tali's eyes noticeably widened at my words, her body stiffening in surprise before slowly relaxing. Inside her visor I could see the outline of her cheeks rise up and her eyes squint slightly. She was smiling at me.

Suddenly however that all changed as I heard a metallic click ring out behind me, the feeling of a barrel pressing against the back of my head following shortly afterward.

"Don't. Move…" a familiar voice slowly ordered. I rolled my eyes at the incredibly cosmic timing of this sudden entrance.

Shepard was standing right behind me.

Tali's grasp around her shotgun tightened instinctively as she looked up over the top of my head, her smile dropping quickly as her military training kicked in. Seeing this, I immediately dropped the hand that had been holding her chin and placed it on top of one of her wrists, stopping her from raising her weapon and pointing it at Shepard.

"Don't! He's on our side and he's here to help you," I uttered to her in a hushed tone, squeezing her arm gently to make her look back at me. Tali gave a quick suspicious glance at Shepard before looking down at me again; her eyes and features scrunched up in a look of worried confusion.

"He has a gun on you!" she stated to me, the tone in her voice leading me to believe she probably thought I was a bit crazy right now. I gave her a friendly wink as a reassuring smile spread across my face.

"Not for long," I said mischievously.

In that second the Iron Man's faceplate snapped back down over my eyes and re-sealed with the helmet, making the HUD flash around my face. As that was happening I immediately spun around, my right arm swinging up and smacking the barrel of Shepard's assault rifle away from my head. The Commander's reflexes were impressive, for he quickly let go of his rifle and snapped his left arm forward under my swing. As his open palm slammed into my armoured abdomen, his glowing omni-tool enveloped his forearm and sent a powerful bolt of electricity into my suit, similar to the attack Tali had used on me after I'd healed her.  
I cringed for a second as the attack stung at me, quickly using my right hand to clamp around his wrist and awkwardly pull his hand away from me. Now it was Shepard who was cringing as I twisted his arm farther to his left, popping its joints several times and forcing him to bare his teeth while struggling to remain standing. With a quick jab of my left hand, I thrust my open palm into Shepard's N7 chest-plate, causing a painful exhalation of air as I knocked the wind out of his lungs. The force of my super-strength was enough to send Shepard flying backward several feet down the alleyway, his body landing and rolling across the metal before coming to a stop.

"I thought you said he was on our side!" Tali said in surprise as she jumped up from the stairs to stand beside me, clearly shocked by this sudden altercation between the Commander and I.

"He is, but I'm not suppose to be seen by…" I began explaining to her when suddenly I noticed the people standing up ahead of us. Back on the other staircase that had been half demolished by the Krogan's grenade were Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus. Kaidan was wide-awake after recovering from his Zat shot, and was quickly moving ahead of an injured but very pissed off Ash as they descended down the stairs and began running toward their downed Commander.

However I only noticed them in my peripheral vision, my real focus was on Garrus. He was standing at the top of the stairs with his gun still in hand, while using his other to hold on to the arm of a bloodied man wearing elaborate armour and a torn black cape with a black tattoo on his forehead, who at the moment seemed to have his wrists restrained in C-Sec handcuffs in front of himself.

They'd managed to capture the Jaffa commander!

"YOU!" I shouted sternly up at the man, pointing a finger to him in recognition. The golden-eyed Jaffa noticed me with a start of fear, suddenly struggling to rip himself free of Garrus's grip.

"No, release me! Release me NOW!" he began demanding angrily, trying his hardest to get away from the Turian.

"Who is that…" Tali began asking before I suddenly turned to her and placed a hand on her arm, gently making her face me.

"Tali listen to me, I need to go now. I'm actually a wanted man here on the Citadel…" I began quickly, looking over to Shepard as he began pulling himself back up to his feet in a crouch, drawing his bright red and black pistol from his belt.

"Believe me when I say that you can trust Commander Shepard, he's an officer with the Alliance Navy who's trying to bring down Saren Arterius. Just show him the evidence you found on the Eden Prime attack and ride with it from there," I told her, urgently turning and preparing myself to charge toward the struggling Jaffa and Garrus.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked incredulously, holding her shotgun across her waist with both hands as she looked over at the scowling Commander and his two soldiers that had come up on either side of him.

"That scuffle was my doing, he only reacted. Tali, everything you think you know about the Reapers is true, you have to show those Geth audio logs to the Council and join Shepard's crew to help him stop Saren. You have to halt his plan to bring the Reapers back; otherwise we're all going to go the way of the Protheans," I said seriously, looking hard at her through my HUD.

Tali seemed taken aback by my words for a few seconds, looking strangely over at Shepard before nodding her head and turning back to me.

"I understand, I'll make sure my evidence gets to the Council…" she responded strongly, as if making an unspoken promise to me. I smiled at that, bowing my head down to her before turning back to the struggling pair on the staircase.

However it was suddenly Tali who touched my arm, abruptly making me look back at her.

"So…I'll see you again some time?" she asked softly, the proximity between us allowing me to faintly see the lines around her eyes narrowed in a friendly way through her visor. I opened my mouth to answer but stopped, her question causing me to freeze in uncertainty. We'd only met each other face to face out of necessity because of the Jaffa's ambush; otherwise I wasn't supposed to have become directly involved in the main spotlight. If I was ever to see her again like this, it would have to be in a setting that wouldn't adversely affect the plot of the game, and in a game as immersive as Mass Effect there were barely any of those.

"I can't say for sure, you may never see me again…" I began regretfully with a brief shake of my head.

"Oh…" Tali said in a suddenly deflated voice, her posture dropping slightly from that negative response. However, I quickly reached up a hand and gripped her gently by the shoulder.

"But if we do, I'll make sure that it's at a less rushed moment. That way we'll have more time to talk. Deal?" I said in a reassuring tone, letting go of her and offering my hand down to one of her own.

"Deal," she answered in a satisfied voice as she gripped and shook my hand with her smaller three-fingered one; her shining eyes squinting slightly and her cheeks rising up underneath them, showing that she was smiling again.

With a wide grin on my face, I turned back to the three Alliance soldiers.  
"Well Shepard! Time for me to take a rain check!" I yelled out loudly before sprinting directly toward the Commander and his subordinates.  
"I didn't come here to stop you Axel!" Shepard shouted to me with a confused frown as he stood up; he, Ash, and Kaidan all keeping their weapons trained on my rapidly nearing form.  
"Then I suggest you get out of my way!" I yelled again as I dived forward, activating the suit's boot thrusters and flight stabilizers to low levels and blasting through the air straight toward the trio!

Shepard and the others all shouted out as they dived in opposite directions, clearing out of my flight path as I flashed across the floor, rotating my hands and blasting up the staircase toward Garrus and the Jaffa.

"Un-hand me dammit!" the Jaffa shouted, sending the heel of his boot into Garrus's gut, making him grunt painfully and lose his grip on the other man's arm.

"No, Axel, wait! Wait! WAIT A MINUTE!" Garrus began saying over to me as I neared him, waving a hand frantically in a cutting gesture before giving up and diving out of the way. I flashed past him as I continued after the Jaffa, who had begun sprinting back to the alleyway door with all the speed he could muster as I came up behind him. With one quick motion, I swept out my left arm and hooked it around the Jaffa's cuffed arms and torso, lifting him up and holding onto him tightly as I quickly redirected my right hand and sharply pulled the Iron Man into a 90 degree climb toward the corridor's ceiling. Just before we could smash into it, I calmly snapped up my arm and fired a shot from my palm, blasting an opening that we rocketed through, with the Jaffa shouting in panic the entire time.

* * *

"Is everyone alright?" Shepard asked to the others as he got back up to his feet, his eyes flicking up to the smoking hole in the ceiling that Axel had just blasted open in order to escape.

"I'm good Commander," Kaidan reported up from the floor, already down on one knee next to Ashley as she painfully pulled herself up into a sitting position.

"I may need another slap of medi-gel soon," Williams hissed out as she clamped a hand onto her burned shoulder.

"Vakarian, how're you doing?" Shepard called up to the top of the staircase. Garrus was already standing with his back turned to them, roughly clipping his gun to his belt in frustration as he also looked up through the hole in the roof.

"He just took my criminal! And there's no other evidence left of the other assassins!" Garrus said angrily, turning to Shepard while jabbing a talon up to the smoking hole. Shepard gave a frustrated sigh, agreeing wholeheartedly with the C-Sec officer.

"Those new assassins were an un-known element, our main objective is still to secure the evidence we need on Saren," the Commander stated finally.

"I think _I_ can help with that…" an accented voice with an odd synthetic tone suddenly spoke up. Wheeling around, Shepard saw the Quarian woman that Axel had been speaking to a moment ago walking casually over to him and the others.

"I take it that you're looking for evidence which can implicate Saren Arterius?" she asked directly to Shepard after taking a moment to deactivate and attach her modified shotgun to the leather straps on her lower back. Shepard was frowning in confusion, stunned by the openness this woman was suddenly displaying towards him and his squad, contrary to the suspicion she had shown him earlier after he had snuck up on Axel.

"Yes we are. Miss, are you alright? Did that man hurt you at all?" Shepard asked, still somewhat confused as he holstered his pistol. Now the Quarian was the one who seemed confused, shaking her head immediately after Shepard posed his question.

"No. In fact if Mr. Sorenson hadn't dropped in when he did, these thugs would have surely killed me and escaped by now," the woman explained, somewhat with distain as she gestured down to the three sleeping Salarians still sprayed out on the floor around them.

"Wait, so you're saying that he just appeared out of nowhere and saved you too?" Garrus asked with a start, now very interested in hearing the details after having descended down what was left of the staircase toward the rest of the group.

"I know how to look after myself, but even I don't think I could have managed to do that…" she began, pointing over to the charged remains of the Krogan assassin.

"Or that," she added in, turning around and pointing up to the body of the Turian assassin hanging off the wall at the top of the second staircase, the hilt of the Krogan's knife still visibly sticking out of his chest.

"If he's really trying to help with this investigation, why didn't he stick around to talk to us?" Kaidan asked to everyone as he began applying a salve of medi-gel to Ashley's exposed shoulder.

"Better yet, why did he suddenly facilitate that other man's escape?" Ash bit out with a wince, glaring at Kaidan as the gel stung at her burn wound. Garrus was rubbing his chin in thought, reflecting back on the last assassin they had managed to capture briefly.

"I don't think he facilitated any escape; I think he just took our prisoner for himself," Vakarian said after a few moments. Shepard frowned again, turning around to face the Turian.  
"What makes you say that?"  
"There was genuine fear in that man's eyes, and with the way he was struggling to get away from me it seemed as if his life depended on it," Garrus explained.  
"Plus the fact that when he did manage to get free he tried running _away_ from Axel before he grabbed him," Kaidan said with a nod up to Garrus.

Shepard began rubbing the bridge of his nose, shaking his head as if he were experiencing a migraine.

"These are questions that we don't have the answers to, and won't have time to find the answers to until we find something that can nab Saren as a traitor," he began, turning back to the Quarian after she'd finished sliding a thin combat knife into an empty sheath strapped to the side of her left leg.

"I have it on wide authority that you're carrying the very evidence we're looking for," Shepard said to her, gesturing down to her left forearm that would have her omni-tool strapped underneath her suit. The woman nodded in an affirmative manner.

"Yes, and I'm fully prepared to share that evidence with you. But not here, there may be more assassins lying in wait, we need to go somewhere safe," she said with a jab of her thumb over her shoulder.

"The Ambassador's office. It'll be safe there, and he'll want to see this anyway," Ashley said with a wince as Kaidan helped pull her up to her feet.

"Good idea," Shepard said with a nod in agreement before they all began moving toward the staircase in front of them.

As they were doing so, Garrus noticed the Quarian woman looking back over her shoulder toward the blasted hole in the ceiling, with an odd hesitancy in her movements. Smirking slightly, he fell in step beside her while also looking in the same direction.  
"He's quite a character isn't he?" he asked quietly to keep Shepard and the others from hearing. The Quarian looked up at him in surprise, as if startled that he had caught on to the same thing she was thinking about. After a second she relented and gave a short nod, looking back up toward the ceiling in thought.

"Yes. Yes he is."

* * *

"_Right here seems as good a place as any,"_ Haxon said offhand after I asked him where would be a good spot to set down and interrogate our still shouting prisoner. Grinning slyly, I abruptly came to a hover and cut the power to my boot thrusters, causing the thrashing Jaffa held tightly in my arm to scream in panic as we dropped from the sky.

Smashing down into a crouch on a nearby rooftop, I released but then grabbed the Jaffa under the collar of his damaged shoulder/chest-plate piece of armour and roughly dragged him over to the roof's edge.

All around us the buzz of hover cars and Fast Transit Lanes rang out overhead, while a relaxing breeze from the Presidium's atmosphere bubble blew across the Citadel's hull. These were the sensations both of us were feeling as I stopped and threw my arm out over the edge of the building, pushing the Jaffa with it until his feet lost traction with the roof!

"_Are you sure you can hold him?"_ Haxon asked as I held the struggling man over the building's edge, extending my arm out even farther until his legs were swinging wildly through thin air.

"Don't worry the suit's strength can maintain his weight, but I don't want him to know that," I said quietly with a smirk while staring straight ahead at the dangling man. His torn black cape was loosely fluttering about him as the pleasant breeze swirled around us, the wind making a slight rushing sound cut through the air that mixed in with the worried grunts coming out of him as he looked at our surroundings.

"Kill me if you wish. I do not fear death by my enemies," the Jaffa spat back at me, his cuffed hands trying to reach far back and grab something that must have been attached to his belt.  
I merely lifted up a leg and propped it comfortably on top of the roof's small raised edge, leaning forward and resting my left forearm on my armoured thigh while extending my other arm farther out into the cool air.

"You're a Jaffa, I'd expect you to have no fear of dying in battle. But, judging from all the noise you made on our trip over here, I'm guessing that you _are_ afraid…" I began commenting slyly, right before jerking my arm down a fraction of an inch. This sudden action caused the Jaffa to give out a yell of fright as he looked down toward the rest of the inner makings of the Presidium far below us, his cuffed hands suddenly reaching up and grabbing onto my forearm for support.

"…_of heights_," I finished in that same sly tone, nodding my head down to the thousands of structures and moving objects glinting in the pale sun around the base of the building.

"So here's how this is going to work. I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to give me answers. If you give me the right answers I'll put you back on the roof," I began, briefly sweeping my hand to indicate the rest of the roof I was standing on.

"But if you give me wrong answers, or if you simply don't answer me at all…" I continued, now sounding very serious for dramatic effect. In that instant I dropped my arm a good two feet, making the Jaffa scream and claw his fingers at me in desperation!

"My arm could get very tired, _very_ quickly!" Lifting my arm back up to its previous position, I nodded cheerily to the golden-eyed man as he began hyperventilating through his mouth, his skyrocketed adrenaline keeping him from answering me at the moment.

"So, first question. Who are you?" I demanded, all humour disappearing from my words. The Jaffa breathed heavily for several seconds before speaking.

"I am Kurath, of the 3rd Royal Imperial Guard of Coruscant," he said, speaking in a more proud and defiant tone. I cocked an eyebrow at this odd information. At least now we were getting somewhere.

"See, this is where I've been getting very confused lately. You're a Jaffa…from _Coruscant._ You commanded an operation of _Turians_ armed with Clone-Trooper blasters and wrist-blades belonging to the Yautja, two of who were cyborgs. Please explain to me how that works?" I demanded, both confused and irritated that I couldn't draw any kind of lines connecting those elements logically. Kurath merely smirked at my reaction.

"Those underlings were merely lost souls who sought out the greatness of our Master. He gave them education, purpose, and eventually gifted them with the weapons needed to expand our influence in this galaxy. As for Coruscant, it has been my home for nearly ten years after it was conquered by the Great Jaffa Armada. With the remnants of the System Lords at his side, as well as traitors within the Galactic Empire, and his vast Sardaukar legions aiding our charge, the Jaffa and our Master were able to take control of not just Coruscant but the entire galaxy within a mere two years…"

"Whoawhoawhoawhoa! Sardaukar? As in Sardaukar _Terror-Troopers_?" I asked suddenly before Kurath could finish, waving my other hand and shaking my head in extreme bewilderment. The Jaffa cracked an evil grin at my shock.

"Ah, so you've heard of them even here?" he asked, more as a statement then a question.

"Yeah I've heard of them, but in a _novel_. They're from the _Dune_ universe! How is that possible? You're from _Stargate_, they're from _Dune_, and yet your Master was able to bring you into _Star Wars?!_" I asked him with a near scowl on my face, the wheels in my head spinning faster than I could keep up with. Who the hell were these people?

Kurath was now cackling at my dismay.

"Oh, but it is far more than just those three. My Master is the force at the head of an Empire that spans _seven_ universes, while also commanding a vast band of champions that he has collected from galaxies _beyond_ his domain. Soon all of Creation shall bow to his might as he stretches his hand forth across the stars…" the Jaffa began saying in an awed voice, his gaze briefly trailing away from me.

"And this galaxy, the entire universe of Mass Effect, shall be the next to be taken into his grasp!" Kurath finished with his eyes narrowing back in on mine, as if he were seeing through my faceplate.

My own eyes narrowed and I gave a contemptible growl as I sharply pulled him closer to my face, the Iron Man's glowing eyes blazing angrily at him.

"This galaxy's already got enough problems with Saren and the Reapers on the march. So here's my last question Golden-Eye, _who_ is your Master?!" I barked angrily at him. Immediately however, Kurath sharply spun his cuffed arms around his waist to the right side, reaching far behind his back and pressing a small button that he had been trying to reach earlier.

"You're friends will find out soon enough. You on the other hand will _not!_" the golden-eyed Jaffa stated viciously as he brought his hands back up and latched on to my forearm again. Only this time he wasn't doing it to steady himself, he was trying to pull closer to me!

"_Axel, I'm detecting a massive energy buildup coming from the cloaking device in his belt! It's going to explode!"_ Haxon shouted after scanning what Kurath had pressed. Both of us immediately began thrashing and struggling against one another, Kurath constantly pulling to stay attached to me, while I kept using my other hand to push him away.

"_Five seconds!"_ the A.I. reported urgently.

"May you linger forever in the Void!" Kurath declared as he raised his legs and slammed his boots into my chest, yanking backwards and pulling me far out over the edge of the building with him. In a snap decision, I flung my other hand out to grab onto the ledge to keep from falling over. As I did this I also activated an internal separation system within my HUD, allowing me to disengage a piece of my armour from the rest of the suit.

A quick hiss sounded out before a loud series of clicks, and then suddenly Kurath was falling!  
The entire hand and gauntlet portion on my right forearm had disconnected, sliding from my arm as the Jaffa's weight immediately pulled it off and took it with him as he fell away from me.

"In the name of Lord Viraden!" He shouted back up at me in one final act of defiance as he plummeted down to the rest of the Presidium below, falling for only a few seconds before his entire body was enveloped in a massive explosion of flame, his detonating cloaking device vapourizing him in a flash!

I threw up a hand to shield my eyes from the explosion's blinding glare, the black glove and gauntlet of my mixed Spectre armour that I was still wearing underneath now showing after the loss of my stabilizer.

"I hate fanatics…" I cursed under my breath after a moment as I looked back down the side of the building toward where the blast had been, only seeing a few faint flakes of ash drifting in the breeze to indicate what was left of the Jaffa's body. I couldn't help but shake my head in bewilderment, stunned that he had been willing to take his own life rather than give more information.

"_Lord Viraden_…that name sounds familiar," I uttered to myself, the name striking against a very, very old string of memory within the dark recesses of my mind. But try as I may, I just couldn't place where exactly I had come across it before.

"_Axel, we need to go. That explosion was visible for half a mile in every direction, C-Sec will have ships up here in minutes to find out what happened,"_ Haxon stated quickly. I gave an absent nod as I looked down on my exposed hand and forearm, wondering how I was going to fly properly with only one stabilizer.

"Yeah you're right. Plot us a course back to the _Corsica_, and patch me back through to Alec," I said more forcefully as I refocused on the task at hand.

"_Already doing so…. Do you really believe what Kurath said, about an empire spanning seven universes?" _

"_I'm_ from another universe. And the simple fact that he was a Jaffa, in _this_ universe, is enough evidence for me to believe that we may now have a lot more problems to deal with than just Saren Arterius," I said with a tinge of worry to my voice right before I activated my boot thrusters and blasted up into the air.

Although that soon proved to be a lot more difficult then I'd first suspected, for immediately after I cleared off the roof I began yelling in fright as the suit began erratically spiraling like a corkscrew across the sky, the loss of my right hand stabilizer setting off the entire balance of the Iron Man!

**Continue chapter…**


	10. I am Iron Man? Part 4

**Chapter 7 continued**.

"People! I really think you're going a bit overboard about this!" Alec shouted out to the clear blue sky above the Citadel while standing in the very center of the hovering Spider Ship's back. Surrounding him and the Replicators on all sides, filling up that clear blue sky at that very moment, were easily several dozen C-Sec patrol cars supported by about ten to fifteen additional Mantis gunships!

"Now I know that if we all just calm down, and talk this out like sensible, _rational_, adults…" Alec began saying loudly like a government mediator, spreading his hands out before him and flicking his gaze to each of the glowing hot barrels and cannons being pointed at the Ship. However as he was talking, Forsenski's glowing orange omni-tool suddenly activated and enveloped his left arm with a beeping transmission button already flashing.

Freezing with a stunned expression on his face, Alec held up one hand in a symbol of truce.

"Oh, hold on a sec, I gotta take this," he casually called back up to the fleet of vehicles before turning away.

"This is the Alec/Replicator Flight and Decoy services, how may I help you today?" Alec answered into the omni-tool, making his voice sound oddly high and cheery like a stereotypical office receptionist. However his cheery demeanor vanished and he had to recoil away from the speakers as a loud voice blared through them.

"_AHHHHHGHH!"_ the voice screamed. Alec's eyes were already widened as his eyebrows knit down into an awkward frown of confusion. Casting a glance over his shoulder to Polly and Sparky, who were looking up at him just a few feet off to the side, the Guardian could only shrug with his expression still spread across his face.

"Uhhhh…I'm sorry sir but we do not service 'AHHHHHGHH!' please try again later!" Alec called back over the noise before abruptly shutting down the omni-tool.

"Damn prank-callers," he mumbled down to the two Replicator spiders. Barely a second after he said that however, Forsenski's device appeared again with another beeping transmission awaiting. Slumping his shoulders in defeat while blowing out an annoyed breath, the Guardian lightly tapped the accept button again.

"Sir, I'm going to have to insist…"

"_Alec, it's me!"_ Axel's voice suddenly exploded out; accompanied by an odd humming sound that seemed to be flashing from a high pitch to a low pitch over and over again, as if the Iron Man suit were spiraling through the air.

"Ohhhh! It's _you!_ Please remember to speak up next time," Alec joked sarcastically in mock surprise.

"_I'm having trouble flying the suit right now so I gotta make this quick. The _Normandy_'s team is safe and Shepard's finally got his hands on Tali's evidence, we can now head back to the ship and plan our next move,"_ Axel snapped back quickly, the humming sound increasing in frequency.

Alec froze with an obviously forced smile on his face, his eyes flicking up from the omni-tool to look around at all of the guns and missile tubes still being trained on him.

"As relieved as I am to hear that, and believe me I am _very_ relieved, we've got a small problem of our own over here," the Guardian uttered as quietly as he could while still glancing around at the enemy ships.

"_What kind of problem?"_ Axel nearly shouted as a loud car horn honked within audio range of his suit.

"Well, after blowing up a radio tower, violating over twelve speeding regulations, and firing back on pursuing police officers, we finally got C-Sec to send nearly a quarter of the station's _entire_ Defense Fleet after us. Right now they've got us surrounded with no visible means of escape, at least non that I can see that wouldn't involve us getting torn to shreds. And even if we were able to escape we still wouldn't be able to get back to the ship without being followed." There was a short pause after Alec finished explaining the situation before Axel responded with the most simplest suggestion ever.

"_Have you tried asking the Replicators to cloak themselves yet?"_

Alec's eyes widened and a subtle sneer formed on his face, the memories of the many gunshots and injuries that he'd sustained in the last ten minutes coming back to him in a flash. He held that expression as he slowly turned his head back over toward Polly and Sparky, eyeing both of them with a narrowed gaze that was bordering on being capable of setting the two machines on fire.

"Cloaking you say? As in making themselves invisible? No, I don't recall ever having had the _indication_ to ask them such a thing," the Guardian answered evenly, although very deliberately and through gritted teeth as he continued to eye the two spiders. Polly was frantically looking back and forth between Alec and Sparky, gesturing to himself with one of his legs before suddenly backing up a few steps and pointing over to the other spider, as if trying to shift the blame for not informing the Guardian about this little talent sooner.

"Please hold one moment," Alec said politely but firmly as he clamped a hand over top of the omni-tool's speaker.  
"I am _so_ going to turn you two into car-batteries when this is over!" he quickly hissed over at them before bringing his attention back to the device.  
"_Alec I need to cut off now, just meet up with me back at the ship so we can talk about what to do next…"_ Axel's voice began, pausing for a moment before finishing.

"…_And believe me, we've got a lot to talk about."_

"Alright then, see you there if we can make it," Alec answered in mild defeat before closing down Forsenski's omni-tool. Letting out a deliberately optimistic sigh, Alec gave one last venomous glance over to the spiders before turning back to look up at the surrounding C-Sec fleet.

"Well ladies and gentlemen, as enjoyable as this massive chase has been, I'm afraid this is where we must…" the Guardian began before suddenly being interrupted by one of the Mantis pilots on a loudspeaker.

"_If you do not surrender yourself and your ship in the next five seconds, we _will_ destroy you!"_ An awkward laugh came from Alec at that statement, accompanied by an equally awkward grin.  
"Right…well it was worth a try," Alec said to himself with a half shrug.

"_5…" _The pilot began counting down, his ship's gun along with all the other cannons and barrels trained on the Spider tuning up to full power as he did.  
"If you _do_ have a cloaking device somewhere inside you, now would be a great time to turn it on!" Alec shot down to the back of the Spider, standing rigidly in place but flicking his eyes tensely from one glowing weapon to the next.  
"_4."  
_"Any time now!" Alec urged down to the Ship.  
"_3."_ Turning to look back at Polly and Sparky, the Guardian gestured to them in a gentle friendly way.  
"Guys, about that car-battery thing…" he began softly.  
"_2!"_ A look of anger flashed back across his face as he jabbed a threatening finger at them.  
"…I meant it!"

"_1!"_

Alec squeezed his eyes shut as the pilot shouted the final number, silently awaiting the final painful barrage of fire that would be dealt upon them at any second now. But surprisingly at that moment, a strange soft shuddering sound emanated from all around the Spider Ship, causing a gentle tickling sensation to travel across Alec's limbs. What followed afterward was even more surprising. Silence, absolute utter silence. No thermal rounds, no missiles, no buzz of cannons.

For some reason the fleet wasn't firing on them!

With a deep frown, Alec snapped open one eye, looking all around the area. The Mantises and patrol cars were still floating around the Ship, each with their fully armed weapons still pointed at him and the Replicators. The confused Guardian looked down at himself and the other Replicators, still able to clearly see them and his own body as well as nothing out of the ordinary. Had the Replicator's cloaking device activated or hadn't it?

Suddenly the Spider Ship gave a short groan as it uncurled its humongous eight legs out from under itself, cutting the power to its anti-gravity repulsors and dropping through the air like a stone!

"AHHH!" Alec yelled out for a quick second as his body lifted up and became weightless, briefly hover/falling above the Ship before it stopped abruptly and came to a hover in mid air again. The Guardian and the two other Replicators smashed back down onto the Spider, Polly and Sparky landing gracefully on their pincer legs while Alec unfortunately landed with a harsh groan on his back, looking up at the swirling blue sky of the Serpent Nebula.

"Oww…" Alec wheezed out quietly as the severe pain of his landing coursed through his backside, his eyes already closed tightly again.

"_We have lost visual on target! All craft open fire on its last known position!"_ the voice of the pilot suddenly barked out through Alec's reappeared omni-tool.

"Lost visual? We only dropped twenty feet," Alec said with a wince as he opened his eyes. Immediately however, he had to shield them to keep from going blind because of the sudden bright flashes of light that had begun to shoot over top of him. Every Mantis and C-Sec agent leaning out of a patrol car had begun firing their weapons, sending erratic streams of thermal rounds coupled with spiraling missiles crisscrossing over top of the Spider Ship.

"Oooooo! Pretty!" Alec awed jokingly to Polly and Sparky as they crawled over to either side of him, all three of them looking up at the red coloured blasts slicing through the air like a bunch of wide eyed children watching the fireworks on Canada Day!

For several hectic seconds this mass chaos of crisscrossing fire continued until finally it subsided.

"_Cease fire! All ship's cease-fire, the target isn't there anymore! It must have activated some kind of cloaking device and left the area,"_ the lead pilot ordered angrily, his words causing the rest of the fleet to quickly stop shooting. Alec had one eyebrow cocked as he looked at the entire group of ships overtop of them, noticing that none were aiming their weapons anywhere remotely close to where the Ship was now.

"Well I'll be damned, your cloaking device must have created some kind of bubble of invisibility around us. And you guys had it this ENTIRE TIME!" Alec started saying calmly with a smile before turning to Polly and shouting the final part of his sentence.

"I'm gonna turn you specifically into a Can-Opener!" the Guardian shouted again as he sharply poked the red and silver Replicator on its front. Polly only hissed angrily at this and took a snap at his hand, to which Alec responded by clenching his fist and drawing it back in readiness to strike.

"_All ships, activate your highest sensory equipment, look for any signs that the ship might still be around here somewhere,"_ the pilot of the lead Mantis ordered, causing Alec and Polly to freeze in mid-attack of each other and look back up toward the sky. All of the patrol cars and gunships had begun breaking up, each of them forming into several search groups and beginning to sweep across different sections of the area.

"This ain't over," Alec shot back at Polly with a jab of his finger before turning his attention to the Spider Ship he was still lying on.

"Alright buddy, I don't know how good your cloaking skills are, and right now I don't wanna know. We need to turn around and head back to the Military Docks, best possible speed!"

There was a long drawn out silence from the Ship after Alec proudly gave his order, causing the Guardian to let out a tired sigh of annoyance and rub the bridge of his nose.

"_Please_ get us back to the Military Docks…" Alec threw in, not knowing what else to do to actually get the Ship to listen to him.

But amazingly, being courteous seemed to do the trick. Immediately after he said the magic word, the Spider gave out a metallic groan before quickly turning itself around and blasting away from the swarm of vehicles on a direct path back to the Docks.

* * *

For several agonizingly long and tense minutes, Alec and the Replicators skimmed across the Presidium's outer hull in silence, bracing themselves in apprehension whenever a siren or a patrolling C-Sec vehicle flashed past them. But amazingly they were never discovered, the Spider Ship's bubble of invisibility keeping them safely concealed from any watching eyes or sensors all the way back to the _Corsica_.

"Alright, now just bring us up underneath it nice and slow," Alec whispered as the Spider quietly dropped down to the lowest stretch of Docking piers that he and Axel had been chased across not so long ago. Moving with a silence that Alec hadn't expected from a ship its size, the Spider easily glided over toward the pier the Alliance Corvette was still firmly latched to. Glancing over the Ship's side toward an area of the main stretch farther back from the _Corsica_'s pier, Alec winced as he managed to make out the hundreds of Dock Soldiers, medics, and maintenance crews swarming around the site of the alleyway where the Predator had attacked the Echo 2 gunship. There were even still a few wisps of smoke rising up from the many craters that the Mantis's sabotaged missiles had smashed into the platform and the massive wall/hull stretch nearby.

However as bad as that damage was, Alec soon discovered that there was actually something good about the way the massive relief operation was going on in that area. Taking a quick look around at the neighboring Alliance and Council war-ships docked next to the _Corsica_, he noticed that as many as a dozen piers on each side were practically deserted, the site of the Predator's attack having taken many of the ships' personnel away from them in order to help with the clean-up effort.

"If Axel directs his approach just right, he should be able to sneak up to us without being detected," Alec stated out loud as he looked across the wide open space just off the edge of the Docks, looking for the best way the Ring Bearer could fly the Iron Man suit to the ship without being seen. Suddenly an annoyed metallic squawk from Polly snapped the Guardian out of his thoughts, causing him to look straight up overtop of himself.

The deep white and blue coloured hull of the _Corsica_'s underbelly rapidly began filling up his field of vision, the Spider Ship having decided to begin flying upward to latch on to it.

"Okay hold on, take it easy," Alec began cautioning as he and the Replicator started rising closer and closer to the hull, going up past the side of its docking pier. But even as he began speaking in an increasingly sharper and more anxious tone, the Spider continued to move up without slowing down.

"Easy, easy. Wait, wait, WAIT!" Alec's frantic words went un-headed as the Spider Ship slammed into the Corvette, causing a sharp metallic thud to ring out as its backside connected!

* * *

"Did you hear something?" the first Alliance marine asked to his partner, craning his neck to look back over the side of the pier the _Corsica_ was attached to. An audible sigh of annoyance came out of the second marine as he dropped and shook his head for a second time.

"_No_. I didn't hear _anything_."

"I'm sure I just heard something hit the bottom of the ship," the first began as he tried moving away from the docking corridor that he and the other marine were still guarding. But immediately without even looking at him, the second reached out a hand and harshly grabbed the first by the scruff of his armoured neck, yanking him back into the spot that he had originally been standing in.

"We didn't hear anything. We didn't see anything. And most important of all, there was nothing there!" the second listed off in a sharp and deliberate voice while still looking straight ahead of himself.

* * *

The inside of the _Corsica_'s main cargo hold was tightly packed with large crates and small containers, leaving only a small aisleway free for people to walk from the ship's elevator down to the far end of the room. The far wall of the cargo hold itself was actually the ship's massive rear door, similar in design to the _Normandy_'s but just reversed to the back of the vessel, which allowed easy access of vehicles or cargo to and from the ship.

For a few still moments all was pleasantly quiet, until suddenly a small hissing sound started emanating from a section of the aisle's flooring. The hissing continued until a roughly circular piece of the metal deck started to give off a faint smoke and quickly dissolve as if acid were eating away at it. After all of this section had dissolved into nothing, Polly and Sparky quickly crawled up through it one after the other, a few lingering wisps of smoke trailing from the front pincers that they had used to burn their way in. A very pained and annoyed grunt echoed out from the hole the Replicators had just created, accompanied by a few sharp curse words in an unfamiliar language. Suddenly Axel's deep black and grey Super-rifle was tossed up unceremoniously onto the hold's floor, followed by two black-gloved hands rising up and latching on to either side of the opening.

"What is it about the words 'easy' and 'gently' and 'HOLD ON!' that the people in this group don't understand?!" Alec growled as he hoisted himself up and rolled onto the deck, taking an extra moment to massage his aching head after the Spider Ship's unpleasant impact had left him sandwiched in-between it and the _Corsica_'s hull.

Back down through the hole, the sound of the Spider repositioning and attaching its eight legs to the ship's underside echoed throughout the cargo hold, followed by a few seconds of eerie silence until the sounds of the usual mechanical movements of normal Replicators began to filter up.

Sure enough, one by one smaller Replicator spiders and beetles began to move up through the hole into the _Corsica_, each of them spreading out and taking in their new surroundings with extreme interest.

"Great, now I've been turned into a mother duck…" Alec grumbled as he stood up after re-slinging the Super-rifle across his back and rubbed a hand tiredly across his face. The Replicators were still pouring through the hole in a steady stream of bodies as they continued to detach themselves from the Spider Ship, each of them now surrounding Alec across the floor and on top of the many crates packed throughout the area, all awaiting any kind of instructions the Guardian may have had for them.

"Well since the whole family's now getting settled in, it may be time to introduce you guys to another friend of mine upstairs," Alec said to Polly and Sparky as he made for the plated door of the elevator. As Polly climbed up Alec's arm and perched on his shoulder, Sparky and the rest of the growing Replicator horde scurried after him in an orderly rush. After pressing a glowing red activation pad and opening the sliding door, Alec calmly stepped into the small elevator cabin with Polly and Sparky in tow. However he immediately held up a hand as the rest of the group tried to make a dash in alongside him.

"I think it'd be best if you guys took the ladder for this one," the Guardian suggested quickly as he jerked his head over to a ladder built into the wall rising up from the floor to a closed hatch in the ceiling. The horde complied immediately, all of them shifting to the side and clawing up the walls or the bottom rungs of the said ladder.

"And please, don't eat any parts of the ship!"

As the plated door slid down in front of them and the elevator cabin began to rise up to the Corvette's command deck, the very catchy tune of the 1950's song _'Yakety Yak'_ began playing through a speaker set in the corner.

"_Take out the papers and the trash…Or you don't get no spendin' cash…" _

"This is one Mass Effect elevator I might not be bored with," Alec said with a wide grin to Polly and Sparky, the second who had positioned himself next to the Guardian's foot. For several long seconds the cabin continued to rise up past the many square block tiles that were built on either side of the elevator shaft, _The Coaster's_ snappy lyrics making Alec and even the Replicators bob their head or bodies up and down to the tune, until finally the trio felt the agonizingly slow machine slow down even more as it neared its destination.

"Okay guys, this friend of mine might be a bit startled when he sees you. So just keep calm, don't act rashly, and follow my lead," Alec explained to the two spiders as the song cut off and the plated door rose up, allowing them to step out onto the blue-lit CIC deck.

Alec and Sparky only got about two steps before freezing in place as a familiar snap-hiss followed by a deep humming sound caused Alec to focus on what was ahead of them. Standing directly before him on the edge of the large black conference table set up in the middle of the room, was the Jedi Master Yoda, who at the moment was pointing his green lightsaber at the Guardian with a grim look of suspicion on his face.

However, it wasn't just Yoda that had caught the trio's attention. Floating in the air on either side of the elevator's doorway were about a dozen Kessler pistols and assault rifles taken from the ship's Armoury, all of them being levitated by an invisible Force Grip. Each were fully activated and training their sights on the Guardian and the spiders!

"Uhh, hey Yoda. What's..uhh, what's with all the guns?" Alec asked with an awkward laugh as he raised his hands in half surrender, half indication of the platoon of weapons behind pointed at him. Ironically this was the moment when Polly and Sparky actually decided to listen to his instructions, specifically that last one about following his lead as they both straightened up and raised their front legs into the air in an imitation of Alec's surrender.

Yoda didn't answer the Guardian's question but frowned in further suspicion as he eyed Polly sitting on Alec's shoulder, the Replicator answering that look with a small hiss.

Suddenly a harsh clanging sound came from a small sealed hatchway built into the floor right beside the elevator's doorway.

"Oh no…" Alec said with a wince a second before the hatch broke open and a collective river of Replicator beetles and spiders exploded out onto the deck. Yoda's eyes widened in surprise as he snapped the point of his lightsaber over to the growing hoard, all of the floating weapons switching their barrels onto them as he did. Upon seeing him, many of the new Replicators began hissing angrily at Yoda, all of them flaring their wing flaps and preparing themselves to attack. In that instant, before any shots could be fired, Alec threw himself in between the two forces with his arms spread wide, while Polly jumped from his shoulder and joined Sparky in opposing the horde. As both of the spiders began hissing at the rest of their family to calm down, Alec spoke loudly to both sides, turning his head back and forth while keeping his arms and hands extended out to them.

"Okay whoa! HOLD ON! And when I say _hold on_ I mean it this time!" Alec's voice boomed throughout the room, turning his head specifically to the Replicators as he mentioned the second part.

"We're all friends here. Which means there will be no shooting or slicing…" the Guardian began listing off, pointing a finger over at a now thoroughly confused Yoda.

"Or pouncing or stabbing pincers into people's heads!" he finished, making another specific jab at the machines, the memory of his first ordeal with them making him shudder slightly. After a tense standoff moment, Polly and Sparky managed to convince the Replicators to stand down, all of them relaxing and ceasing in their hissing. Turning back to Yoda, Alec had to swat away a few pistols that were floating a bit close to his head.

"What manner are these creatures of Alec?" Yoda asked as he begrudgingly closed down his lightsaber; however he still kept his arsenal of floating weapons trained on the machines.

"They're called Replicators Yoda, they're a bunch of new allies that Axel and I made after we managed to ditch C-Sec for a while," Alec explained earnestly. Yoda gave a severe frown of uncertainty as he clipped his lightsaber to his belt, giving one of his deep 'hum's as he remained still somewhat suspicious of the machines.

"Its true! Look, they're actually quite friendly when you're nice to them," Alec insisted, as he turned around and roughly picked up Polly with both hands. The surprised spider hissed angrily and began hopelessly thrashing its legs and pincers in an attempt to get free, clearly not liking being suddenly lifted up from behind.

"Oh knock it off you big metal baby. Yoda, this is Polly…" Alec scoffed down to the squirming machine before he carried him over to the conference table and introduced him to the Jedi.

"Polly, Yoda," he continued politely with a hand gesture in between the two as he placed Polly on the table's surface next to Yoda.

Yoda's look of suspicion faded into one of curiousity as he brushed the folds of his claw torn robes behind himself and sat down cross-legged in front of Polly, his large yellow eyes gazing over the red and silver interconnecting blocks that made up the Replicator's body. Polly now seemed to be taking the same interest in the Jedi, for as soon as he was placed on the table he turned to the little green man and began staring up at him in the same manner that he had to Axel when they had first taken a liking to each other.

"Strange, a great many minds connected to this one there are, and yet thinks with only one it does," Yoda stated slowly in fascination, extending his right hand out to Polly and using the Force to feel the hundreds of other Replicators connected to him. For a few moments they stayed that way until Polly took several hesitant steps toward Yoda's hand, pausing for another moment before suddenly extending his legs up and gently nuzzling the Jedi's palm with the flat of his facial area.

Yoda chuckled softly in his croaky old voice as he pet Polly's wing flaps and belly with both hands, looking like a green toddler playing with a new kitten. Grinning happily at this outcome, Alec turned and beckoned Sparky to come over.

"Sparky, this is Yoda. Yoda, Sparky," Alec introduced the Master to the smoking and still periodically electrocuting spider as it scurried over and climbed up onto the table next to Yoda's other side.

"I'd be careful around him, you might get a bit of a shock," the Guardian warned as Yoda turned his attention to the second machine while still petting Polly with one hand.

"Indeed, hence how he got his name I suspect," Yoda said with another chuckle as he began stroking Sparky's back with his other three fingered hand, a dim blue light glowing from his palm and protecting his skin from the arcs of electricity that would move across the spider's limbs. With an even wider grin on his face than before, Alec sharply spun around to the rest of the silently waiting horde of insects.

"Replicators, _YODA!_ Yoda, _REPLICATORS!_" Alec announced in a comedic way with dramatic lunging gestures between the two parties. Right away a large portion of the horde screeched with joy, rushing forward and climbing onto the conference table, smothering the now laughing Jedi Master like a bunch of lovesick puppies!

The force of the many spiders and beetles that began gently pulling at him knocked Yoda over onto his back, causing him to laugh even harder as he began petting each of the machines surrounding him.

"Quite starved for attention they appear to be!" Yoda managed to say through his chuckling as he strained to sit up, pushing down several of the needy machines that clung to him.  
"I don't blame them, Axel didn't really have time to give them the same affectionate treatment that he did for Polly," Alec responded with a nod over to the red and silver Replicator.  
"Where is Axel now?" Yoda asked as he stood up, sweeping his hand through the air to make all of the pistols and rifles still floating around the room deactivate and fall into a pile next to the table.

Alec raised a reassuring hand and opened his mouth to answer when suddenly a tremendous _CLANG!_ echoed harshly throughout the entire CIC, emanating simultaneously from a massive inward dent that had just formed against one of the sealed emergency hatches built into the nearby bulkhead!

Alec's eyes widened and a worried frown formed on his face as he listened to a very faint and yet very painful groaning beginning to filter into the ship from the outside.

"Now, I could be wrong…" he began slowly before abandoning that thought and quickly rushing over toward the bulkhead, Yoda and the rest of the Replicators following right behind him as the same idea occurred to them.

* * *

"Now I _know_ I just heard something!" the first marine said firmly with a sharp jab of his thumb over to the far starboard side of the _Corsica_, having just heard the sharp sound of something metallic slam into the ship. The second merely gave an exasperated breath and snapped his head over to his partner, harshly pointing a finger up at the lower area of his own face.

"Read. My. Lips! You did not hear _anything!_" he roared angrily at the other. A very long, drawn out, and tense stand off began between the two men before the first marine suddenly raised both his hands toward the second's head in a gesture of extremely confused indication.

"YOU'RE WEARING A _HELMET_!"

The second immediately jabbed the finger he had been pointing at himself directly at the first marine's masked/helmeted face.  
"Shut up!"

* * *

"Come on you dumb machine, open up!" Alec hissed angrily as he continued to press the glowing green pad set up next to the emergency hatch; but the damage caused by the huge dent that had formed in it was preventing the hatchway's operating system from actually working properly. Suddenly the Guardian paused after realizing what he had just said, casting an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the uncomfortably silent horde of Replicators spread out across the deck behind him.

"No offense guys," he added in quickly, getting a small venomous hiss from Polly afterward.

"Stand aside," Yoda commanded as he placed himself directly before the hatch. After Alec quickly jumped out of the way, the Jedi stretched forth his hands and clenched his fingers, willing the energies of the Force to surround the hatchway. With a great screech of straining metal, Yoda closed his eyes and grimaced in effort as he forced the sections of the damaged hatch door to instantly part away from each other.  
Immediately a surprised yell sounded throughout the room, followed by a large humanoid figure dressed in a smoking and badly scratched suit of silver and black armour somersaulting head-first through the opened hatchway, landing harshly onto the floor sprayed out on his back!

"Well, _that's_ an entrance if I do say so myself!" Alec stated up to everyone with an amused grin as he looked down on the groaning Iron Man.

* * *

Pain wracked every inch of my body, my aching head feeling like it was about to split open at any second.  
As it turned out, the loss of the Iron Man's right hand stabilizer hadn't been the suit's only problem. As I neared the Military Docks, the suit thrusters soon began to sputter and malfunction, while the already screwy navigation system began to short out and spark within several of the torso's plates. Suddenly I found myself giving out a thin trail of wispy smoke as I haphazardly spiraled through the air up toward the Corsica's pier, pushing the suit with every last shred of power I could draw from it's Replicator core.  
Unfortunately however that proved to be too much for the strained system to handle, because as soon as we came within a hundred feet of the ship's hull and tried to slow down, every flight system suddenly flickered and died, making both Haxon and I yell out as we drove straight into one of the closed emergency hatchways built into the ship's starboard side!

After smashing a massive dent into this said hatchway, and groaning for several seconds as I lay plastered against the _Corsica_'s hull like a bug on a windshield, I suddenly yelled out again as the doors to the hatch were forcibly pulled open, allowing me to somersault uncontrollably into the ship.

"Hello? Can you hear me in there?!" a familiar voice asked loudly from outside of the pitch blackness that surrounded my face after the suit's HUD had disappeared. As this voice spoke, I could feel an irritating tapping sensation hitting against center of the Iron Man's faceplate, showing that my annoying doppelgänger was deliberately poking at me. Giving a severe frown with that same feeling, I used the last of the energy in the suit to make the Iron Man's faceplate rise up away from my eyes, allowing me to treat a grinning Alec with a dagger filled glare.

"_Yeah!"_ I answered back sarcastically before wincing in pain, the repercussions of my impact still fresh in my body.

"Man, you really did a number on this," Alec remarked in astonishment as he looked over the scratched, scorched, and bullet torn armour of the suit.

"Yeah, and its gone dead now. That's what happens when you're shot out of the sky and beaten to a pulp by an angry Krogan, help me get out of this thing," I retorted as I reached up and manually unfastened the Iron Man helmet before roughly pulling it off of my sweat soaked head. With a quick nod, Alec turned to the rest of the Replicator horde and hooked two fingers in his mouth, giving a loud sharp whistle. Right away the horde rushed forward, surrounding and semi-submerging me as they began using their pincers to unclasp and pry apart the different sections to the damaged suit. Several of them also crawled up onto the wall and began making impressive repairs to the _Corsica_'s dented hatchway, straightening and closing its doors before sealing them shut with several molten hot weld spots from their front Replicator pincers.

After only a few minutes of simply remaining still and letting the machines work, I was eventually surrounded by an un-orderly ring of pieces of discarded armour, now lying in my mixed Spectre/ N7/ Pirate armour that I had been wearing underneath the whole time.

"Wow, you look a hundred pounds lighter," Alec commented with a chuckle as he extended a hand down to me.

"I _feel_ a hundred pounds lighter, oww!" I said with relief before more waves of fresh pain hit me as I accepted his hand and was pulled to my feet. I closed my eyes and hissed through my teeth as the throbbing bruises on my torso and limbs that I had sustained in my recent ordeals began to sting at me, forcing me to stagger over and lean wincingly against the edge of the black conference table set up in the middle of the room.

"Its at least good to see that we all made it back here in one piece without being seen," I said with a small smile as an ecstatic Polly scrambled up onto the table top and began fervently nuzzling my hand, overjoyed at seeing me again.

"It was pretty straight forward on our end: we flew across nearly half the Presidium and got chased by pretty much every agent on duty. But what happened with you, it sounded like you had quite the adventure going on in your area," Alec asked with interest as he crossed his arms and leaned against one of the curved ceiling supports that rose up out of the floor spaced around the table, similar in design to the several supports that would surround the large Galaxy Map onboard the _Normandy_.

"I don't know…there were assassins…there were cyborgs...there was a Jaffa, it was a mess," I listed off with a tired groan as I rubbed both my hands down across my face, trying to alleviate some of my fatigue and massage the headache I was still feeling simply from thinking about the events of the last half hour.

For the next few minutes I began explaining to the group everything that had happened, starting from the beginning with my arrival at Dr. Michel's clinic, all the way to the end with the explosive death of Kurath.

After I'd finished, it still took a few seconds of stunned silence before Alec and Yoda managed to speak up.

"_Stargate_ and _Dune_…brought into the _Star Wars_ universe?!" Alec asked in extreme astonishment. Yoda seemed just as taken aback as Alec, even if he had no real idea what _Stargate_, _Dune_, and _Star Wars_ were.  
(Yeah, still gotta get around to telling him about that last one)

"Darth Sidious and his rule defeated?" Yoda asked in a stupefied voice, as if even his trained 900-year-old mind couldn't possibly fathom it.

"A unified Jaffa Armada being aided by legions of Sardaukar Terror-Troops? Conquering that entire galaxy in just two years?" the Guardian posed again, still just as astonished as he had been before.

"An Empire spanning seven universes?" Yoda asked immediately afterward, more to himself as he stroked his chin in worried thought.

"Go back to the part again about _Stargate_ and _Dune_…being brought into the _STAR WARS_ UNIVERSE!"

"Guys, guys! I'm just telling you what Kurath told me. I've got no idea how this could be possible or if he was even telling the whole truth," I began saying quickly, raising my hands up in defense against the barrage of questions the two were throwing at me.

"The simple fact that he was a living Jaffa, carrying a living Goa'uld symbiote, already in charge of an assassination plot should be enough truth for us to believe that we may now have a serious problem on our hands. And what about his Master, this Lord Viraden character?" Alec began saying to all of us, even to the horde of attentively listening Replicators. I could only shrug and shake my head in defeat at that last question.

"I have now real idea, I thought the name sounded familiar but I can't remember where I've heard it before. Maybe this Viraden was some kind of villain in a movie or novel I looked over when I was young and now the ring has made him flesh and blood, just like it did for the Predator and the Xenomorphs," I suggested grimly, lifting up my right hand to briefly gaze at what was visible of the ring through the small burn holes in the finger of my glove. Immediately Alec began shaking his head, an obvious frown of uncertainty on his face as he thought it over.

"No, that wouldn't make sense. If the ring did bring this Viraden guy to life from some obscure memory of yours, how could he have already carved out an Empire from a group of completely unrelated universes? You said that Kurath mentioned he had been living on Coruscant for nearly ten years after the Jaffa and the Sardaukar besieged it; that means that Lord Viraden was already alive and causing trouble throughout the cosmoses at least ten years _before_ you even found the ring in the first place."

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance, a light sting flaring up from the spot Tali zapped.

"I thought about it on the way back here but my conclusions just kept on getting more and more confusing. I am however willing to bet money on Shepard running into more of Viraden's goons after he learns that his three assassination attempts all failed."

"Well we've still got the _Corsica_, we've now got the band back together, and Jango is…" Alec began listing off, indicating the ship, the Replicators, and the three of us before turning back to Yoda with an expectant look on his face.

"In the medical chamber he is," the Master answered with a point of his finger over to one of the doors on either side of the elevator.

"…In Intensive Care. So why don't we just launch the ship and follow after the _Normandy_ once Shepard finally leaves the station to go after Saren?" Alec suggested eagerly back to Polly and I.

"Believe me I would love to do that, but do you have any idea how to track a prototype Alliance Frigate through a Mass Relay?" I posed up to him with a wince as I took my hand away from my nose, feeling more throbbing from the bruising along my arms as I moved my muscles slightly.

"Or better yet, do you have any idea which planet Shepard is going to go to first, or what he's going to do in between each of those stops? You said it yourself Alec, we need a way of keeping tabs on him or else we'll be blindly searching all over the galaxy for any sign of where he'll be going next."

Alec was at first silent, opening and closing his mouth hesitantly as the realization struck him.

"Well…uhh…I guess that does…" he began with a few half nods of defeat.

"Exactly. We can't leave quite yet until we've found out where the _Normandy_ will be going," I interrupted with a low nod of indication that sealed my point. Alec threw up his hands and gave an exasperated breath as he stepped away from the ceiling/floor support.

"Alright then, please All-Knowing One, pre-tell what this plan that you've developed for tracking Shepard's whereabouts throughout an entire galaxy is?" Alec prompted to me with a dramatic bow of mock reverence. I gave an involuntary smile at his gesture, causing me to wince again in minor pain before I raised two fingers to my ear.

"Actually it was Haxon's idea this time. Would you mind explaining it to them so it saves me the pain of talking too much," I commented to the Guardian before turning my attention to the A.I.

"_Not at all,"_ Haxon answered as Alec, Yoda, and the Replicators grouped closer around me to hear the A.I. better. Raising my right forearm, I pressed a button on the side of my black armoured gauntlet, one that slid open a very small compartment connected to a short barrel that extended outward. Within this compartment was a small short ammunition belt of darts, containing three sections made up of about five darts, which created fifteen in total.

"_This is a cloakable listening dart, one that is capable of sticking to any surface and picking up on nearby voices or conversations within twenty feet of its microphone,"_ Haxon explained as I held up one of the darts for everyone to see before placing it on the table in front of Polly.

"And I take it from the name it can go invisible?" Alec asked rhetorically as some of the Replicators craned their bodies up from the floor to see well. Reaching back into the compartment, I took out another dart that looked slightly smaller then the first.

"_This is a tracking dart, perfectly accurate within two feet of its intended target, and capable of being picked up within _1000_ feet of its corresponding launcher, in this case Axel,"_ he continued as I placed this dart next to the first.

"So I take it that the plan is for us to attach these somewhere on Shepard or one of his crew so that we can listen in on what they're saying to each other?" Alec quizzed as he looked down on the two devices.

"You got it," I answered with a nod.

"And I think I've already found a hole in that plan. If you attach those to somewhere on his armour, they'll simply get left behind in Shepard's locker whenever he changes into his normal clothes on the _Normandy_. We'd only ever hear what he says after he'd already landed on which ever planet he goes to first." I smiled mischievously as Alec pointed out this flaw, having already come up with a way to counter it.

"You're right, that _would_ be a pretty bad hole in the plan, but there's another way we can plant it on him," I said. Alec frowned at this, a confused look creeping into his eyes.

"Well I'm pretty sure he or any of his squad-mates might feel a sharp tingling sensation if you tried firing it into their necks," he answered sarcastically. I laughed at this, feeling amused that he still hadn't figured out my solution yet.

"_That_ would be a problem too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm suggesting that we turn both of these into a single _mobile_ tracking unit, capable of remaining hidden and within twenty feet of Shepard at all times." Now I had Alec really confused, causing both he and Yoda (who had been forced to jump up onto the table and stand behind Polly to see properly) both looked back and forth between the two darts and myself.

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" Alec asked.

"This was the part _I_ came up with. With the Replicators' advanced capabilities, I think they can basically combine these two darts and give it a little pair of legs, that way it pretty much becomes…" I began, causing Alec's eyes to widen and one of his trademark grins of revelation to spread across his face.

"You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

With a grin that very nearly rivaled that of Alec's, I turned my head down to Polly and Sparky, the second which had just crawled up onto the table top next to his red and silver brother.

"Guys, we need these two darts combined into a single casing. We also need it to have legs and a working mind so that it can stay hidden and on Commander Shepard at all times, both on his away-missions and even on the _Normandy_," I began saying to the two spiders, which were looking up and listening carefully to my every word.

"I want you to turn these darts into a _miniature Replicator_ to keep tabs on him."

Polly and Sparky seemed to flinch in surprise, as if the idea shocked them.

"It needs to be able to still cloak itself, transmit Shepard's location, and pick up on any words he says to the rest of his crew, while at the same time always staying undetected. You think you can do it?" I asked sincerely down to the two spiders. Polly turned to Sparky and began engaging the other in a conversation of hisses and low screeches, debating over the proposition. After a few quick seconds the spiders suddenly turned back to me, both of them nodding their bodies up and down excitedly.

"Alright! Lets stand back and watch the magic happen!" I said with a clap of my hands as Yoda, Alec, and I all inched away from the duo. Both spiders took up positions opposite of each other on either side of the two darts, crouching down low to the surface of the table. As Polly began heating up his front pincers, Sparky began scratching deeply into the table's metal top, scraping up small fragments from it with the sharp ends of his front legs and sweeping them next to the darts. Then, after both Replicators had brought their pincers up to full power, they set to work dismantling the two darts. A bright flair of light and a few sparks flashed out as whatever advanced energy flowed from their bodies carefully broke apart the darts into near microscopic Replicator blocks and re-assembled their fine inner-makings back together into one frame, adding in the small metal fragments provided by Sparky and an additional sliver of material taken from the tip of Polly's left leg.

After several tense seconds of waiting, in which the rest of us had to shield our eyes from the bright light flaring in between the two, Polly and Sparky finally finished their work and backed a few steps away from the final product. Eagerly all of us, even several of the Replicators waiting patiently on the floor, scrambled over toward the table, bringing our heads or bodies close together over top of the steaming spot the others had been working at like some intense pre-game Football huddle!

"Is this it?" Alec asked with a slightly confused frown, the tops of his, mine, and Yoda's heads all touching each other in a weird triangle as we looked down on the small black device. Just as I had hoped the two darts had indeed been fused together into one single body, one that looked more akin to a small-caliber bullet then a dart. For another tense second we all said nothing, waiting with baited breath for the dart to do something.

Suddenly it shuddered, giving a miniature metallic groan before four very small curved legs sprouted out from the underside of its body at its front and back!

All of us reared back in surprise as the tiny Replicator Dart picked itself up and stretched its limbs like a small animal coming out of a nap, followed by a few shaky steps as it became accustomed to crawling around.

"IT'S ALIVE! ALIIIVE!" I announced dramatically in the classic voice of Dr. Frankenstein, raising my arms high for greater effect.

Both Alec and Yoda looked over at me with cocked eyebrows at my sudden outburst.

"I have always wanted to say that," I said to them with a wide grin and a gentle shrug to keep my bruises from inflaming any further.

"It's a bit bigger than I was expecting," Alec remarked after closely inspecting the tiny creature scurrying in circles in front of him as I offered the flat of my palm down to the machine. Immediately the Replicator Dart moved onto and nested itself within the center of my gloved palm, curling its legs back into the sides of its body and going silent once again.

"It is, but its still small enough to fit properly. When I get close to Shepard it should still fire out and latch on to him like its suppose to," I said as I carefully placed the Dart into the small ammunition compartment and slid it firmly into place within my gauntlet's barrel.

"Which brings me to another issue in your plan; how exactly are you going to get close enough to Shepard to shoot this onto him?" Alec asked with a brief hand gesture to my gauntlet as the barrel retracted back and disappeared within it.

"After I saved Tali she promised that she would hand her evidence over to Shepard, which means all he has to do now is present it to the Council and get Saren kicked out of the Spectres," I answered. Alec's eyes suddenly widened again.

"Which means the last chance you'll have to wire him is…" he began when I suddenly finished for him.

"At his next meeting in the Council Chambers…" I said morbidly with a small nod.

There was a short pause of silence before Alec began giving a very deliberate and forced laugh, using it as more of a way of expressing sarcasm than humour.

"Axel, you're seriously planning on waltzing into one of the most secure places on the entire Citadel? With that kind of plan in mind you might as well just barge into C-Sec Academy itself, hold up a bouquet full of roses, and say 'Arrest Me!' to everyone there!" Alec explained exasperatedly while connecting and thrusting his wrists toward me, imitating the act of being handcuffed.

"I _know_ Alec! Haxon already drilled me enough about that on the way here. There just isn't any other alterative that wouldn't involve me getting caught," I shot back sourly.

"How do you plan on even getting in there without being seen?" At that question my mood brightened up a little bit.

"With this," I said with a sly grin before pressing another small button on my left gauntlet this time. Immediately I felt a small tickling sensation travel across my body, accompanied by a visible pixeled flash. Looking down at myself, I frowned in momentary confusion at the fact that I could still see my body normally.

'_Is the suit's cloaking device broken?'_ I wondered. However a half second afterward my fears were belayed, for Alec immediately threw up his hands with a 'screw it all' look on his face.

"I'm done. I am _so_ done with this group. Does _everyone_ here have an invisibility device stashed on them somewhere?" the Guardian asked irritated, for some reason focusing most of the question on Polly and Sparky, before whirling around and pointing a finger at a stunned Yoda standing on the table top next to him.

"Even you! You were able to make us practically invisible with your MIND!"

"Alec I couldn't really tell you about this little trick at the time because we were still being chased and shot at," I said with a laugh to calm him down as I pressed the button again, causing another pixeled flash and, to everyone else but me, my body to reappear out of thin air.

"Well then there's your solution right there! Instead of going into the Council Chambers, why don't you just cloak yourself, wait outside its front entrance, and then tag Shepard when he and his squad walk out after their meeting?" Alec suggested with a nod down to my gauntlet.

"Because Shepard isn't _walking_ to places, he's taking the Fast Transit Taxis to go between destinations. So unless you actually want me to try barging into C-Sec Academy when he's getting into the elevator to go up to the _Normandy_'s docking pier, the Council Chambers are the only place he'll be out in the open long enough for me to plant the Dart on him," I pointed out. Alec sighed and shook his head in defeat, begrudgingly agreeing with my point.

"Then at least let me do it instead, that way if they manage to corner me I can always suffer the pain of using my teleportation trick…or just fight my way out," Alec suggested with a crack of his knuckles and a grin. I smiled warmly at that proposal, stretching out and laying a grateful hand on his shoulder.

"I appreciate that, but I know how to take care of myself," I said with a nod as I pushed myself off the edge of the conference table. Unfortunately a tremendous sting from the bruises on my legs caused me to stagger to the side slightly, forcing Alec to grab onto my arm to help steady me.

"You're sure about that? You can barely stand as it is," he commented with concern as I slowly stood up straighter with a wince.

"I'm bruised Alec, not broken. I'll be fine once I get moving around some more," I stated as I flexed my legs a bit.

"Well before you go, at least take this for some added protection," the Guardian said as he reached to his belt and pulled out my white M5-Phalanx that I had given to him earlier, flipping it around so that its handle grip was extended out to me. I smiled again as I accepted the pistol and clipped it to my belt. With a last affectionate stroke on the head to a mournful looking Polly, and a final handshake from Alec, I began making my way around the edge of the conference table toward the _Corsica_'s main airlock.

"Don't worry about me guys, I'll be extra careful. I'll be like a fly on a wall, a shadow in the night, a…" I began saying to everyone from across the table as I moved, turning my head over to them while speaking before I suddenly walked straight into one of the ceiling/floor supports spaced around the table!

"Yeah, because that fills us with so much confidence," Alec said sarcastically as I shook my head to clear the pain of the impact.

"Aside from that part, everything is going to be fine. I'll be back soon, so while I'm gone just stay here, lie low, and keep the ship in one piece," I said with an embarrassed chuckle as I continued into the tight corridor that connected the forward cockpit to the conference area.

"Take care Axel, if true it is what you have told us about Viraden, graver dangers than C-Sec there are now roaming across this station," Yoda called over to me as I pressed my palm against the airlock's opening mechanism.

"Believe me Yoda, that's a forefront in my mind," I answered back solemnly as the door slid open.

"May the Force be with you," Yoda and Alec said at the same time, causing them both to look at each other with an amused smirk. I couldn't help but chuckle and nod back at them.  
"You too. Now kids, try not to burn down the house while I'm gone," I joked with a farewell salute before stepping into the airlock and sealing the door behind me.

* * *

As Axel disappeared from view, Alec turned back to Yoda with a dramatic frown of confusion on his face.

"I'm getting a weird sense of deja-vu here, have we split up like this before?" Alec asked to the little green man standing on the table beside him with a barely contained chuckle. Yoda could only chuckle also and shrug. With a wide grin, Alec clasped his hands together and turned to the horde of Replicators surrounding them.

"Well gents, since we're going to be waiting on this rust-bucket for a while, why don't we go and see if there's anything here that needs…_improvement,_" the Guardian stated with a slyly cocked eyebrow, eliciting an eager hiss from the hundreds of machines.

* * *

Outside the _Corsica_, I moved swiftly down the docking corridor once the outer airlock doors had opened. There already wasn't much time before Shepard would be summoned to present Tali's evidence to the Council, which meant I had to find a way to get to the Citadel Tower before him, and with the Iron Man suit now defunct I needed a new way to do it fast. Up ahead, the two bumbling Alliance soldiers that had been left to guard the ship were still arguing with each other over some new topic that I didn't care to listen to. I played with the idea of activating the suit's cloaking device then and there, but since Yoda's Mind Trick had been powerful enough for them to forget and ignore us the last time, I figured it would be powerful enough to still convince them into not noticing me now.

"Great job on the guarding boys, keep at it," I complimented as I walked through unseen in-between them, casually clapping them both on the backs as I did.

The two screamed in un-naturally high voices as they felt the sensation, whipping out their guns and shouting at each other, spinning around in circles looking for whatever had just touched them. It took all my energy to keep from bursting out into a fit of laughter as I made my way down the pier away from the oblivious duo, pressing the button on my gauntlet and disappearing into thin air with a pixeled flash.

For the next fifteen minutes I stealthily ran down the Docks, carefully avoiding patrols of Turian and Human soldiers that were still searching around the area for Alec and I. Eventually I found an unguarded elevator lift which I entered and took up to the top level of the Docks, which luckily led and opened onto one of the farthest sections of the Embassy District.

"It doesn't look like there are too many people around. If I keep a low profile no one should notice my face," I stated quietly to Haxon as I deactivated my cloaking device and reappeared, having ducked into cover behind a large metal wall partition only a few feet away from the elevator I had stepped out of. Just beyond my position was the usual sun-lit, wide open, lush green, and cool watery scenery of the Embassy District, along with several connecting pathways and bridges that extended out to the other side of the area. Spanning horizontally in front of me was a white tile pathway with a single steel railing going across, one that only a handful of people from different races were leaning on or standing beside throughout the immediate area, each of the deep in conversation with each other. Connected to this railing in plain sight was a single glowing Fast Transit terminal.

"_Without the Iron Man suit, how are you planning on getting to the Council Chambers in time?"_ Haxon inquired as I carefully looked across the area, summing up each of the few individuals within walking distance of the terminal.

"The same way most other people get there, I'm gonna take a taxi," I answered with a small smile, taking one last glance around for any nearby cameras or C-Sec agents that might have been running their beat at the moment. Thankfully there weren't any.

"_What if the taxi driver recognizes you?"_ Haxon suddenly asked as I stepped out from my cover and began quickly making my way over toward the terminal.

"C-Sec only broadcasted my face throughout the Market District, so hopefully not that many people actually know what I look like. But if the driver _does_ recognize me…I may need to get creative," I said under my breath as I subtly laid a hand on the butt of my Phalanx. For the few seconds that it took to cross the distance between myself and the terminal, I kept my head bowed and avoided eye contact with the few people nearby. I also made sure to keep my left hand covering over my right so as to prevent the ring from lighting up and possibly causing a repeat of the incident in the Market Corridor, the very one in which I nearly gotten arrested. I felt a small feeling of relief wash over me as I came to a stop in front of the glowing terminal, reaching out my hand and tapping the bright orange call button that would summon a hover taxi from the Fast Transit Lanes that flashed back and forth overhead.

But immediately that feeling was replaced by one of apprehension as a shadow came across the terminal, followed by the feeling of someone deliberately jabbing their elbow into my left side as a Human politician dressed in a dark blue and red business suit came up and tried pushing me out of the way.

"Excuse me sir," the politician uttered without really meaning it as he made to press his hand against the call button. Up overhead the screech of a nearing hover car could be heard as the taxi I had flagged came dropping out of the Travel Lanes down toward our terminal. I scowled as I quickly used the flat of my hand to slap the politician's away from the device, locking eyes with him as he jerked to face me in astonishment.

"Excuse _me_ sir, I got here first. This is _my_ taxi," I retorted with a jab of my thumb over my shoulder as the taxi gently touched down on the tiled pathway beside me.

"Do you know who I am?" the politician hissed at me, as if he were insulted that I would dare to make him wait for the next one.

"Don't know, don't care, I'm in a bit of a hurry. You got a problem with that?" I shot back at him with a maliciously cocked eyebrow. The politician's astonishment increased ten-fold at that statement, causing him to stutter over his next words with barely contained fury.

"Didn't think so, have a nice day," I finished with a curt nod before turning around and making my way into the back seat of the vehicle as its roof and doors flung wide open to allow me entrance. As I sat down and became comfortable, the taxi sealed back up and hum/screeched back into the sky, leaving the politician to watch us fly away shaking with rage.

"_Are you sure that was wise? What if _he_ had recognized you?" _Haxon asked quietly to keep the taxi driver up front from hearing.

"Come on, that guy was just some smug smart-ass politician, I wasn't just going to stand by and let him take our only means of getting to the Tower on time. Besides, what are the chances of him even bothering to listen to the news issues that don't interfere with his special luncheons with the Citadel Counselors?" I asked reassuringly back under my breath.

* * *

"Impudent, no good, stupid…" the politician began muttering to himself as he watched the taxi with the man that had just challenged him fly up and mix with the usual flow of air traffic. Smacking the call button on the terminal to signal the next taxi, the politician began sourly thinking on that man's face and his appearance, hoping to burn that image into his own mind so that he would remember that person if they ever crossed paths again. But then suddenly the politician's eyes widened, and his look of anger dropped into one of horrified recognition.

"Wait a minute. That was the terrorist who started the park riot!" he suddenly exclaimed as he looked back up toward the sky. Immediately he brought up his arm and activated his omni-tool, keying in the proper sequence to contact C-Sec Academy!

* * *

"So man, where ya headed?" the taxi driver asked back to me in a friendly voice once he had merged our car within the lanes of flying vehicles. I snapped my head up to look at the back of our chauffer; something in his voice and the way he was speaking catching my attention. Simply from looking at him I could tell that he was an odd contradiction to the normalness of the dark blue hover taxi he was driving.

He was a young man of about my age who had wavy shoulder length blonde hair, with a trim but scruffy beard of the same colour that connected with his sideburns and covered all of his chin and jaw. On his slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken at one time in his life, he wore a pair of sleek glasses that appeared to have dark purple lenses instead of transparent ones. On his body he wore a plain un-tucked white dress shirt that didn't look like it had been ironed in a while, wearing it with his sleeves rolled up just underneath his elbows and with his collar left open by a few buttons. He also wore rumpled black trousers that looked like they had been purchased at a second-hand store.

As I took all of this in, there was one thing that really caught my eye. Wrapped around the driver's right wrist were several bracelets, some of them made out of straps while others were sets of wooden beads placed on a string. But one of them appeared to be a charm bracelet, with several tiny metal symbols spaced out along it. The biggest and shiniest one was what had caught my attention, being in the shape of a circle with an upside down Y and a small third branch sticking out from the bottom.

It was the classic Hippy symbol for peace.

"Oh no. In another universe, nearly two hundred years in the future, and I still run into these people," I muttered quietly as I rubbed my forehead tiredly, wincing as more pain shot up from the bridge of my nose. While living in the colder woods of Northern Ontario, I had run into a lot of hippies or former hippies in my life. Many of them had been really nice people, while unfortunately a lot of others had simply been drug/sex addicts or thieves, more than willing to slit someone's throat if it meant they'd get what they needed for their next fix. I'd always made it a point to stay clear of them whenever I could, simply out of caution.

"_What do you mean?"_ Haxon whispered as I thought about this.

"Take me to the Council Chambers please," I told our hippy driver politely, ignoring Haxon's question. I noticed the driver frown in confusion and cast a glance up at me through the taxi's rear-view mirror after my request.

"That's gonna be expensive dude, most taxi traffic that goes in there's usually supposed to be packing those high and mighty politicians or their lackeys," he explained, kind of bitterly, while still casting occasional glances up at the mirror.

"I'm willing to pay, I've got urgent business there. In fact, I'll be willing to pay a little extra if you can get me there as fast as possible," I suggested with a nod to the wide windshield showing the scenery of the Embassy District flash by underneath us. Up ahead, the mighty form of the Citadel Tower rose up slightly off to the left side, slowly coming closer and closer as the car continued flying. It actually felt quiet nice to be going across this terrain for a second time without the weight of the Iron Man suit pressing in on me, or having an angry Asari liaison blasting away in a gunship.

"Oh sure thing then man, if I crunch the numbers it should total out to…" the driver began as he took one more look at me through the mirror. But then suddenly his jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he focused all his attention on my face.

"Hey, wait a minute! You're that guy…" he began excitedly with a jab of his finger up at the mirror before semi-spinning around in his seat to look back at me.

Only his voice cut off abruptly as the tip of his nose ran into the barrel of my activated Phalanx!

Pointing the pistol that I'd subtly unclipped from my belt straight in his face, I kept my expression neutral and my breathing steady as I leaned forward in my seat closer to him.

"Turn around, keep your eyes ahead of you, and take me to the Council Chambers please," I requested again evenly, but this time in a cold tone as I pressed the barrel harder against the ball of his nose. The driver's eyes went crossed as they tried looking down at the gun, while he slowly raised his hands in surrender.

"Dude, chill, chill we're cool man," he said with a nod as he obediently flipped around back to the car's controls. Still keeping the Phalanx on him, I leaned closer until my head and gun were nearly sticking out in between the taxi's two front seats.

"What's your name?" I asked the driver calmly as I looked out the windshield.

"Uhh Darren, Darren Aagaard sir. If you don't mind me asking man, you _are_ Axel right?" Darren asked with a small grin of excitement on his face as he occasionally turned his head back to me, keeping most of his attention on flying while still trying to talk. I rolled my eyes as I slightly nodded my head in defeat.

"Yes I'm Axel, and _no_ I'm not a terrorist. That was a badly used ruse made by my partner to get the crowd in the park to riot," I answered in an irritated tone as I thought back on how that stupid label had started. But Darren only laughed and shook his head.

"Man even if you were a terrorist, you don't need the gun. I'm on your side dude, power to people, stickin' it to the system!" the driver announced enthusiastically while shaking his fist in a show of victory as he indicated my Phalanx. I was frowning in extreme bewilderment, enough so that I lowered my pistol and looked directly at my thought to be hostage.

"What are you talking about? Why would you want to side with a terrorist?" I asked him. Darren only shot his widened eyes over to me with another grin on his face.

"DUDE! Do you have any idea how much the Council picked our pockets to build that stupid _SKYLIFT_ system! That thing cost the people close to half a billion credits, and it barely works any better than a simple hover car. Me and probably a couple thousand others were chanting your name when we heard that you were the one who'd blown up one of its cabins!" The hippy driver sharply jabbed his finger up to the peak of the Tower as he explained this.

I was truly stunned now, my face scrunching up even more as I thought about this new notion for a few seconds.

"Man to a lot of people on this station, you and your buddies are fucking heroes! Especially to me!" Darren continued as he slapped a hand over his heart.  
"Seriously?!" I asked, still as astonished as I could ever be.  
"Straight up man!"  
I blew out an amused scoff as I deactivated and clipped my pistol back on to my belt.  
"Well, in that case, Darren Aagaard, Axel Sorenson," I said with a relieved smile as I extended my right hand out to him.  
"Sorenson, nice to meet you. What is that, Swedish?" Darren asked after fervently shaking my hand while at the same time manipulating the car's controls with his other.  
"Danish actually," I corrected with a nod.

"Danish, Fuckin'-A! My family's from Norway, so I guess that pretty much makes us neighbours," he remarked with a brief clap on my shoulder. I arched my mouth in agreement and nodded at that too.  
"Yeah, I guess it could."  
"So where ya from Axel," Darren asked as he made the taxi dodge around a slow moving cargo transport.  
"Uhh…I was born near Ottawa," I answered after a moment of thought, not really knowing if Thunder Bay, the place I had been mostly _raised_ in, would still be around in the year 2183. But Darren's eyes only lit up as I said this.

"Man, I was born in _Vancouver!_"

"No shit?" I exclaimed with a start, a wide grin of surprise forming on my face at this news. With an even wider grin that would have impressed Alec, Darren clenched and raised his fist, extending it out before me.  
"Dude, pound that shit. Canadians are drawn to each other man! Small galaxy eh?!"  
"Dude," I agreed with a series of nods in that same cool laid back tone that Darren was speaking in as I raised my own fist.  
"Dude!" Darren answered back with his own nods as we fist-bumped each other.  
"DUDE!" we both said again at the same time before bursting out into a fit of laughter.  
"Alright Darren, you want to do something that can help me get off this station?" I asked after we both finally calmed down, reaching down to one of the pouches on my belt and unbuckling it.

"Just name it Axel, I've got your back." Reaching in, I pulled out the small credit chit that Steve Irwin had given to me after winning our shooting contest against the Xenomorphs back in his store.

"I want you to get me to the Council Chambers as fast as you can without C-Sec detecting us, this fifty thousand credits should be able to shoo away even the most stubborn politician into letting you land and staying in the Tower for a while," I explained as I placed the chit in Darren's hand. His eyes bulged as he heard the amount, causing him to look the device up and down as if expecting it to be a fake.

"Dude if you want it, you can buy the whole car with this, I'd be your gunman," he answered sincerely with a sweep of his hand across the dashboard.

"I think I'll just pass on that, the last time I tried flying one of these it didn't go so well," I said quickly with a wince as I remembered the eventful trip in Irwin's Viper from the Market District to the Military Docks. Darren chuckled at that as he remembered it to.

"Yeah I heard about that not too long ago. Man, a high speed battle with a Ray, you sir are a badass," he stated with another of his grins and a finger pointed over at me. I smiled at that as I inclined farther out between the two front seats, bringing myself closer to him.

"Alright, so if you're gonna be my getaway man, here's the plan I've thought out…" I said before I began to lay out my idea of how I was going to escape from the Council Chambers after I had successfully planted the Replicator Dart on Shepard.

* * *

"Alright we're here dude!" Darren announced excitedly as he brought his taxi into a slow glide through the air within the dim-lit but lushly decorated Council Chambers. As we easily flew toward the large trees and shrubbery spaced near the center of the room, I was having a hard time breathing properly, my heart and lungs having already gone into overdrive from the adrenaline coursing through my body. My fingers were nearly breaking the backseat's armrest as they remained clamped around it, shaking slightly from the ordeal we had just gone through.

"That uhh…that was some insane flying Darren," I managed to say after calming down enough to speak again. When I'd told him that I wanted to get to the Tower as fast as possible, I wasn't prepared for the speed or maneuvers he had been willing to enact to do just that!

(And I'm just going to leave it at that and allow you guys to conjure up whatever insane acrobatics you think a hover car could manage, because chances are they won't even come close to what _he_ was able to do)

With a deft mastery of the controls, Darren brought the taxi to an easy hover over top of the large pink tree set up close to the large pit the Council would hold meetings over, gently easing us down until we had landed directly in front of the glowing Fast Transit terminal positioned before the large grand double staircase that led up to the extended Speaker's platform.

"So you remember everything you need to do?" I asked from the backseat as I clapped our hippy driver on the shoulder.

"Yup. Basically just sit here and wait for you to get back. If anything goes wrong I'm suppose to listen for your word," Darren answered, summarizing everything that we had planned together on the way here. I smile at that as I clapped him again.

"Close enough." With a quick repositioning, I leaned against the side door closest to the Chamber staircase and pressed the small button on my left gauntlet, causing the familiar tingling and brief pixeled flash to travel across my body as my armour's cloaking device activated.

"Wicked!" Darren awed with a grin as he looked around the interior of the car, obviously having lost sight of me even though I could still see my own body just fine.

'_This'll be very confusing if I ever forget to turn this thing off,'_ I thought as I took a moment to look myself over.

"Alright, open the doors now," I ordered over to him, appearing as a disembodied voice from his perspective. With a quick nod Darren pressed the release button, causing the entire taxi to open up like a flower and let me step out.

"Excuse me sir. Only taxi's with official Council business are allowed to park here," said a Turian Chamber guard as he came over to Darren's opened vehicle.  
"Hey boss chill out. I am on '_Official Council Business'_, I'm just waitin' to pick up a dude after the meetin' they got goin' on up there," Darren said up to the Turian looming over him, making good use of finger quotations for the business part as he jabbed his thumb up the stairs toward the Speaker's platform.

"The meeting hasn't even started yet," the guard pointed out as he flicked his eyes up the Council platform, catching sight of the Turian, Asari, and Salarian Counselors only now just arriving to take their positions.  
"Then I'll just wait here until it starts, and then wait again until its finished so that I don't miss my fare," Darren remarked.  
"Do you have any permits to enter into Chamber airspace, or land on Chamber property?" the Turian demanded.

"No sir I don't, but I do know the fees required to park in this area," Darren shot back with a folding of his arms. The Turian folded his own arms and glared down at the Human that was trying his patience.  
"So you already know about the 2000 credit spatial fees, plus the three hundred…" the guard began when suddenly Darren pulled out the credit chit I had given him and held it up toward the Turian's face. (Which considering the Turian's natural height and how low Darren was sitting to the ground, it reached up more to the man's waist than his face)

"Yeah yeah yeah, how about you just take the money for the fees and another 2000 from me as a way of saying 'Get away from the car and don't bother me again'," the hippy interrupted as he waved the chit. The Turian scoffed, snatching the chit out of his hand and taking a scan of it with his omni-tool.

"As if a man as badly dressed as you could possibly afford to…WHOA!" the Turian stated with his eyes bulging once he saw the amount the chit contained scroll up on his screen.  
"Thanks, Bird-Face," Darren bit out, in a slightly smug tone, as he snatched the chit back after the Turian had finished transacting the fees from it.  
"Yes sir! Sorry to disturb you sir! I'll make sure nobody does it again, sir!" the guard said with perfect military precision as he snapped off a stiff salute before marching away. With that Darren clicked the button on his dashboard again and caused the car's doors and roof to seal back into place.

I laughed quietly at that altercation, still standing out in the open but remaining completely hidden from all the politicians and guards scattered throughout the Chambers.

"I always run into the strangest characters when I'm out on my own. First Irwin and Bruce, then Kurath, and now Darren," I listed off with a chuckle as I gestured over to my getaway taxi.

"_Yes you do. And…Axel, he's here!"_ Haxon began before suddenly hissing his warning in my ear. Snapping my head around as I heard the telltale screech of another hover car echo throughout the colossal Chambers, I stiffened with apprehension as another Fast Transit Taxi touched down on the other side of the pink tree that Darren had landed beside. As it opened, Commander Shepard, Kaidan, Ashley, Garrus, and Tali all staggered out from its insides, each of them groaning or massaging the stiffness from their limbs after having been crammed together into such a small vehicle.

"All in favour of taking the elevator next time?" Garrus asked offhand to everyone while rubbing the back of his sore neck. I held my breath tightly as they each walked around the back of Darren's car, passing within fifteen feet of me but never glancing in my direction as they began climbing up the double staircase toward the Speaker platform. I breathed again slowly, inwardly relieved that the cloaking device was working as properly as Irwin said it would. As I watched them walk farther away from me, most of my focus shifted to Tali as she allowed herself to fall to the back of the group.

I smiled as I thought back to the last thing I had said to her, how if we ever saw each other again it would be at a less rushed moment. But now here I was, standing within normal speaking distance of her but unable to actually show myself.

Suddenly however, something strange happened.

As I noticed Captain David Anderson suddenly appear at the top of the staircase and begin to descend down to meet up with Shepard, the group stopped for a brief moment on the steps. Kaidan, Ash, and Garrus all began engaging in a short conversation amongst each other, but Tali took this moment to turn around and look out across the Chambers, obviously struck in awe by its sheer size and beauty.

What was strange however was when she panned her view over to the right; she suddenly stopped abruptly with her gaze centered directly on the area I was standing in!

My smile dropped and my eyes widened slightly, my body going rigid and remaining completely still. My breath caught in my chest as Tali slowly cocked her head to one side, the glowing silver orbs visible through her visor shrinking slightly as she narrowed her eyes, as if she were curious or confused about something.

"Haxon? The cloaking device is still working right?" I asked very quietly while barely moving my lips, feeling my apprehension raise another notch as Tali took a slow step off the staircase towards me, her eyes narrowing even more.

"_Of course it is,"_ Haxon answered, but even as he said it I could hear a slight wariness in his voice. For another second I stayed as frozen as a statue, staring into the eyes of the woman in front of me, waiting for her to suddenly shout and oust me to everyone.

"Come on. Udina's presenting the Quarian's evidence to the Council," Anderson's voice echoed down from the middle landing of the staircase, causing Shepard to signal for the rest of the squad to follow him and the Captain up to the Speaker's platform.

"You coming Tali?" Kaidan asked over to her once he saw that she wasn't moving. The lieutenant's voice seemed to snap Tali out of a deep trans, causing her to shake her head as if clearing her eyesight.  
"Uh, yeah…I'm right behind you," she said hesitantly, casting one last confused glance over at me before turning and following the others.

"She saw me!" I stated in astonishment as I watched her ascend quickly up the stairs.

"_Axel, you're using one of the most advanced cloaking devices out on the market, there's no way she could have seen you,"_ Haxon defended.  
"Maybe she couldn't actually see my body, but she knew I was standing here somehow." I barely had time to extrapolate further on this when suddenly the deep grainy voice of Saren Arterius boomed out across the glass-covered pit from atop the stairs.

"_Eden Prime was a major victory…" _I cursed as I recognized those words from the Geth audio logs that Tali had discovered. Our window of opportunity to tag Shepard was quickly closing!

"We need to get to a vantage point now!" I said sharply as I spun around and dashed to the far left side of the Chambers. Crossing the distance in seconds and running past an oblivious Admiral Kahoku who at the moment was arguing with an uncooperative communication's terminal, I came to a skidding stop within an enclosed sitting area surrounded by elevated layers of soil-beds, each with lush bushes, trees, and greenery growing out of them. With a snap decision, I sprinted over to my right and dived head first into the bushes of the first soil bed, coming up in a roll and launching myself up onto the second level. The citizens and politicians who were sitting on the benches in the area all began speaking to each other in alarm as they saw, to their perspective, the bushes and plants I was climbing through roughly shift and move all on their own.

"_Where are we going?"_ Haxon asked as I lunged through an alien flowerbed and latched both hands onto the edge of the third and final level. Baring my teeth and grunting in effort, I quickly kicked my feet and hauled myself onto the flat vine covered top of the level, standing up and pointing my left arm across the deep pit that stretched out below me.

Far off to my right, the Speaker's platform extended out above the center of this pit, at the moment supporting Ambassador Udina on its front end as he played the rest of Tali's recording for the three Counselors towering over him on their higher platform.

'_This is ten times weirder then back at Chora's Den,' _I thought with an amused smile, reflecting back on how I had been present and had even helped during one of the pivotal moment's in Mass Effect's plot, even without the main character's knowing of my presence.

"We're going to perch up there," I said quietly as I pointed up to a small extended roof jutting out overtop of a walkway that encircled around a portion of the glass-pit the Council was presiding over, one that would give me a perfect bead to fire the Dart onto Shepard when the time came.

"…_And one step closer to the return of the Reapers,"_ the voice of Matriarch Benezia suddenly echoed out from the glowing console on the Speaker's platform, showing that Tali's evidence was finished playing.

"Remember when you said you wanted me to go through a tutorial on how to use my grappling-hook? Now's the time, how do I use it?" I asked as I quickly scanned across the gauntlet surrounding my left forearm.

"_It's very simple, press the first button next to the one that activates your cloaking device,"_ the A.I. explained. After finding the indicated button, I pressed it and suddenly felt a sharp mechanical movement within the gauntlet.

Immediately a six inch long steel spike jutted out of a small barrel that had extended from the gauntlet, one that quickly snapped out a series of progressively larger serrated edges along either side of it, forming a large and very sharp arrow-like head!

"Whoa! What's next?" I asked in surprise as I took a moment to look over the dangerous appearance of the grappling hook's end.

"_Take careful aim at your target, and then press the next button over from the one you just used, this will fire the hook,"_ Haxon explained further. Seeing the third button, I outstretched my left arm while flexing my wrist downward and sighted along its length with my right eye, taking a brief second to steady my aim before pressing the fire button. My arm barely jerked from what little recoil there was as the dart-hook silently blasted from my gauntlet all the way across the glass pit, a thin steel cable wildly trailing out behind it from the barrel before the dart head sunk into the Chamber's surrounding wall above the jutting roof with a metallic slicing sound.

"Nobody else can see this right?" I asked after a quick look around for any onlookers.

"_Steve modified the cloaking device to extend its field down along the cable, thereby keeping it invisible even when extended to its full length._ _Now, simply press that button again and it will automatically retract the cable, taking you along with it to the roof."_ With a wide grin I gave an eager nod, excited for my first attempt at flying through the air on a grappling-hook.

"Tally-ho then," I said with a chuckle before slamming my finger against the fire button for a second time. Suddenly my eyes widened as the mechanism in my gauntlet began sucking the cable back into its barrel, and harshly pulling me up through the air with enough force to nearly rip my arm out of its socket!

"HAAAAARGH! I screamed as I was whipped up from the vine level and yanked across the pit toward the wall my hook was attached to.

* * *

"You wanted proof, there it…" Ambassador Udina began stating up to the three Counselors after the Quarian's evidence had finished playing, pointing a commanding finger at them before he was suddenly interrupted by a loud masculine scream that echoed out across the Chambers from the far left side!

"HAAAAARGH!" the voice screamed before it was cut off by a tremendous metallic crash, followed by two smaller crashes, leaving an awkward stillness running throughout the room afterward. Everyone: Udina, the Counselors, Anderson, Shepard and his squad, along with anyone leaning against the walkways that surrounded the glass pit all looked to that general direction in confusion, searching for whatever had caused that noise.

"What was _that?_" Ashley asked to the rest of the squad as her eyes also scanned across that portion of the room.

"Most likely an accident has just occurred, guards will be dispatched immediately to find the source and render any aid that may be required," the Salarian Counselor reassured as he activated his omni-tool to put in this order.

"Meanwhile we must return to the issue at hand," the Asari Counselor said to everyone, earning a collective nod from the other Counselors. As the meeting continued and everyone returned to what they were doing, Tali continued looking up toward the area the scream and crash had come from, the sensor's in her helmet visor picking up a slight spatial anomaly now present on the roof of a walkway that curved around a small section of the glass pit they were standing over.

She frowned deeply and narrowed her eyes in suspicion, leaning over the side railing of the Speaker's platform as she tried focusing her gaze on whatever this thing was. It was like looking at a heat haze, very nearly invisible to the naked eye but distorted enough to be distinguished from the rest of its surroundings. It was the very same distortion that she had noticed at the foot of the stairs just a little while ago.

"Tali? Are you alright?" Garrus suddenly asked as he reached out and gently shook her by the shoulder. Tali blinked as the movement made her lose focus on the distortion, causing it to vanish just like it had the last time she'd seen it. The Engineer shook her head again and massaged a spot near her helmet's temple, the experience of seeing something and then having it vanish on her twice causing a small pain to flare up in her forehead.

"I…I think my suit might be malfunctioning, its picking up random heat traces," Tali answered as she turned away from the railing to face back up to the Counselors.

"You may want to get that looked at before we run into anymore trouble," Garrus said. Casting a subtle glance back up to the roof, Tali could see a portion of the heat haze had reappeared and was now moving over to its center, coming to a stop at a perfect vantage point overlooking the Council Pit. Wedging her eyes shut in annoyance and rubbing her temple even harder, Tali gave an irritated sigh of agreement.  
"Yes, I'll definitely do that."

After all, it was just a heat trace _right?_ It couldn't have been anything other than a malfunction.

* * *

"Oww…oww…owww…" I wheezed out through small pain induced gasps, awkwardly pressed sideways with my back against the wall, hanging off my left arm as the head of the grappling hook remained embedded in the wall itself.

"_Mayyyybe I should have mentioned the amount of power the auto retractor can have on this thing,"_ Haxon remarked with another one of those audible winces in his voice, knowing full well what my reaction would be at the moment. Growling under my breath, I grimaced as I jerked my arm outward, causing the dart-hook to disengage its serrated edges from the wall and retract itself all the way back into my gauntlet barrel in a flash, disappearing entirely as the barrel also folded back up along with it. I gave a brief yell as this happened, the lose of my connection to the wall making me fall and roll down the side of the slanted roofing before I abruptly flattened myself out on my stomach, coming to a scraping stop right beside its sudden drop-off.

"Yeah, that would have been nice to know _before_ I smashed face-first into a steel wall," I hissed under my breath before my entire body cringed in pain, the throbbing bruises that covered my torso having become re-inflamed again after my recent impact. I could also feel a stinging cut going across the top of my right eyebrow, and a hot sticky wetness beginning to collect within its hairs. Raising a hand up, I wiped my thumb against this injury and found a moderate amount of blood smeared across it, it's dark red colour blending in with the black leather of my glove.

"Great. I really hope this won't need stitches," I muttered with another wince as I wiped away more of it with the back of my hand.

"This evidence is irrefutable Ambassador. Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes," the voice of the Turian Counselor suddenly echoed throughout the area nearby.

My eyes shot wide as I quickly sprung up into a sideways crouch, turning around and carefully moving along the edge of the roofing.

"Show time," I stated with a wince as I turned to the left and crossed over onto the main stretch of roofing that ran along the outside of the glass pit. Down below, the Counselors' and Speaker's platforms faced inward toward each other, giving me the most perfect vantage point I could think of for watching the rest of the meeting and tagging Shepard once he stepped out away from the rest of his squad.

"_Do you need a tutorial on how to fire the dart launcher?"_ Haxon asked after I stopped and quietly leaned against the roofing, sitting with my back straight and the bottoms of my boots pressed against the edging to keep myself stable. I winced again as I raised my aching right arm, pressing the button that would open the ammunition compartment containing the dart-belt.

"I think I got the basics down. This button here should be the firing system right?" I asked as I pointed to a second button next to the one I had just pressed.  
"_You got it,"_ Haxon confirmed.

"I recognize the other voice, the one speaking with Saren. Matriarch Benezia," the Asari Counselor had begun saying, continuing the meeting as if my scream hadn't been heard by anyone.

(Wow. Way to show concern people. What if it had been a bomb going off?)

"Who is she?" Shepard asked up to the Counselor, standing close beside Anderson and the rest of the Normandy squad. I blew out an annoyed breath at this as I reached in to the dart compartment, gently grabbing on to and pulling the miniature Replicator Dart out from the barrel of the launcher.  
"Come on. Hurry up and get to the good part," I began saying to myself under my breath, continuing to watch the meeting with keen ears and peeled eyes, eager for the moment I was waiting for.

"_What good part?"_ Haxon asked as the Replicator Dart slowly began extending its legs within the center of my palm, waking up from its apparent nap with its cute little movements and miniaturized noises.  
"Just wait for it, it's coming up soon. This was one of the side benefits of getting here on time; we get to watch a historic moment in this galaxy's history," I answered as I turned my attention from the Dart back to the Counselor, who was nearly finished answering Shepard's question.

"…They serve as guides and mentors to my people," the Asari finished explaining before returning to the specifics of Benezia.

"Matriarch Benezia is a powerful Biotic, and she had many followers. She will make a formidable ally for Saren." Beside her, the Salarian Counselor semi-folded his arms and began stroking his white striped chin, staring off down into the Council Pit deep in thought for a few seconds before bringing his large black eyes back up to look at the Speaker's platform.

"I'm more interested in the Reapers. What do you know about them?" he asked with a gesture down to Shepard.

"_There's that name again, _Reapers._ First you mentioned them when we faced against that Turian assassin in Chloe's hospital, then you spoke about them to Tali, and now the Council themselves are talking about them, what exactly are they?"_ Haxon asked after hearing the Counselor mention the title. I gave a heavy sigh, knowing that the A.I. wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"Brace yourself, cause' you're about to find out."

"Only what our Quarian expert here was able to extract from the Geth's memory core…" Capt. Anderson began saying, casting a respectful gesture of indication over to Tali. I couldn't help but crack a smile as everyone on the platform turned to look at her, causing Tali to flick her head between each person and nervously point to herself from all the sudden attention.

"I assume then that you have some insight into the Geth's knowledge of these beings, Miss…" the Salarian began with a casual questioning tone. There was a moment of hesitancy as Tali took a slow deep breath and mustered her courage before moving up to the head of the group past Shepard and Anderson.

"My name is Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya. From the memories I was able to extract from that core, I learned that the Reapers were an ancient race of machines thousands of years more advanced then the Geth themselves, and that they were the ones responsible for eradicating the Protheans. After they finished, they suddenly vanished from the galaxy never to be seen again." My eyes had already widened the moment she stepped forward, and now my smile of astonishment was widening to epic proportions as well.

'_Well…_this_ never happened! This plot-line already had a few changes of its own even without me messing it up!' _I thought as I watched her spread her hands and arms out in semi-dramatic gestures and continue explaining what she had learned from the memory core.

"The Geth revere the Reapers as the Old Gods, the epitome of all synthetic life, and they believe that Saren is the prophet for their return," Tali continued with a nod up to the Counselors.

"We think the Conduit is the key to bringing them back. Saren's already begun searching for it. _That's_ why he attacked Eden Prime," Anderson said from behind her.  
"Do we even know what this Conduit is?" the Salarian Counselor asked.  
"Saren thinks it can bring back the Reapers. That's bad enough," Shepard answered with a serious nod. Tali nodded after that also.

"Exactly. If the Reapers are using Saren as an agent to control the Geth by-proxy, then they will have already established a beachhead from which to allow the rest of their forces a quick entry back into this galaxy. According to the Geth, Saren only needs this Conduit device in order to complete that very plan," she said up to the high platform. Even as they spoke however, the Turian Counselor was already shaking his head in dismissal, throwing up a hand to emphasize that very point.

"Listen to what you're all saying. Saren wants to bring back the machines that wiped out all life in the galaxy? Impossible, it has to be," he began as Tali turned around and rejoined the rest of the group, obviously glad to finally be out of the spotlight.

"Where did the Reapers go? Why did they vanish? How come we've found no trace of their existence? If they were real, we'd have found something," the Turian finished, looking between the Speaker's platform and the rest of his fellow Counselors. Immediately Shepard took a step forward, pointing a reminding finger up at the Council.

"I tried to warn you about Saren and you refused to face the truth, don't make that same mistake again," Shepard said firmly, although slightly imploringly, as if he were subtly pleading with the Counselors to see the truth.

'_They're going to regret this in the end,'_ I thought sadly as the Asari held up a hand and shook her head.  
"This is different. You proved Saren betrayed the Council. We all agree he's using the Geth to search for the Conduit, but we don't really know why."

"The Reapers are obviously just a myth Commander. A convenient lie to cover Saren's true purpose. A simple _legend_ he is using to bend the Geth to his will," the Salarian spoke after, shaking his head softly as he played down the notion.

A scowl formed on Shepard's goateed face after that statement, causing the Commander to take a step forward on one leg and direct his gaze up to the Counselor.

"Fifty thousand years ago the Reapers wiped out all organic civilization. If Saren finds the Conduit, it _will_ happen again!" The Turian merely scoffed as Shepard pulled back in step next to Anderson.  
"Saren is a rogue agent on the run for his life. He no longer has the rights or resources of a Spectre, the Council has stripped him of his position," the Counselor stated matter-of-factly.

I gave a small chuckle as Ambassador Udina, as if right on queue, butted into the exchange with one of his classic outbursts.  
"That is _not_ good enough! You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse, send your fleet in!" the Irishman barked, leaning forward aggressively and curling his fist out before himself in a symbolic show of military strength.  
"A _fleet_ cannot track down one man," the Salarian retorted firmly with a calm shake of his head. This answer caused the Ambassador to huff quietly and drop his fist, shaking his own head in annoyance.  
"A Citadel Fleet could secure the entire region, keep the Geth from attacking any more of our colonies!"  
"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems. We won't be dragged into a galactic confrontation over a few dozen Human colonies!" the Turian Counselor rebuffed immediately with a jab of his index talon. Right away Shepard spoke up with an obvious smirk on his face.

"Alright, send _me_ in then."

"Bull's-eye," I uttered with a grin as everyone on the Speaker's platform jerked his or her heads over to him with a start of surprise. On the high platform, the Asari Counselor was slowly beginning to match Shepard's smirk, nodding in approval as she came to the same conclusion he had.

"The Commander's right. There is another way to stop Saren that does not require fleets or armies," the Counselor stated to her colleagues. The Salarian was rubbing his chin again, this time with a look of thoughtful curiousity before he began nodding in agreement. The Turian Counselor however was looking over at the Asari with his cheek mandibles flared open and his jaw half dropped.  
"Are you out of your mind?! It's far too soon! Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the Spectres."

Shepard, still with his knowing smirk on his face, loudly cleared his throat to regain the Council's attention.  
"You don't have to send a fleet into the Traverse, and the Ambassador gets his Human Spectre. Everybody's happy," the Commander said, nodding his head over to Udina's backside before staring back up at them. I grinned madly at this, _now_ we were ready!

"This is it!" I said before bringing my attention back to the Replicator Dart that was crawling in circles across my palm.

"Okay buddy, I'm sending you on a mission now, a mission that'll probably end up being a few weeks long. Inside you there's a cloaking device, a tracker, and a listening microphone. I'm going to fire you out of this dart launcher and you're going to attach on to Shepard; once you do that you're going to turn invisible and stay within twenty feet of the Commander and his team at _all times_, day and night. Is that understood? The team and I are counting on you, can you do it?" I asked in the most commanding military officer's voice I could muster. The Dart stopped moving and was silent for a moment before it looked up at me and slowly nodded, getting into a ready crouch and retracting its legs back into its body-casing. Smiling at this, I picked up the Dart and gently slid him back into the open chamber of the dart-launcher's barrel.

"Commander Shepard…step forward."

The Asari's words caused me to snap my head back to the meeting in excitement, my right arm quickly extending forward and my left index finger coming to a hover over the launcher's firing button.

With a nod from Anderson that he returned gratefully, Shepard took several steps toward the end of the Speaker's platform, coming to a stop standing next to Udina's left side, leaving _his_ left side out in the open for the Dart to latch on to!

All around the Chambers, on walkways, platforms, and another vantage points (well _legal_ vantage points I should say) citizens and politicians of every race were gathering to watch this historic event, waiting in silence for the Council to make the announcement.

"_Wait a minute. You really weren't kidding? Shepard is going to become the…"_ Haxon began in shock before I suddenly interrupted him with a sly smile.

"The First Human Spectre." With that I mashed my finger down onto the fire button, causing a sharp whistle to cut through the air as the Replicator Dart was fired out from the barrel!

As it shot down across the width of the Council Pit, the Dart sprang open and extended its legs out to their farthest lengths, stabbing the sharp points on their ends into the material of Shepard's N7 shoulder-plate as it slammed and latched onto him without a sound. The Dart remained motionless for a second before quickly crawling several inches down the length of the Commander's arm and activating its internal cloaking device, vanishing from sight a moment afterward.

* * *

Ashley blinked, stunned by what she had just seen. Narrowing her eyes, she scanned the side of Shepard's left arm intently, searching for any sign of the strange spider-like thing that had just landed on the Commander and then disappeared.

"LT, did you see that?" Ash whispered over to Kaidan standing beside her as she pointed to Shepard. Frowning, the lieutenant leaned over closer to her head, trying to match his line-of-sight with Ashley's.

"See what?" Kaidan asked after failing to find whatever it was she was talking about.

"For a second there was this small black thing attached to his arm, and then it just…disappeared," Williams answered with another gesture to the Commander, frowning in confusion as she kept looking him over. Kaidan cocked an incredulous eyebrow with a glance over at Ashley this time.

"Chief, are you sure you're not feeling a bit, _dizzy_, after your injury?" Alenko asked with a nod down to her exposed left shoulder, spinning his finger in a circle near his temple to indicate what he meant. Ash only scoffed and rolled her eyes at that.

"Shut up," she bit out in annoyance while turning her attention back to Shepard's induction into the Spectres, a bitter look now scowled on her face. Kaidan only gave a thin smile as he leaned closer to her.

"What was that? _Chief_," he whispered to her in a humoured tone, taking an extra emphasis on her rank. Ash gave her own smile as she glanced back at him, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

"Shut up, _sir_," she uttered back in a semi-sarcastic, semi-playful tone, her mood already brightening up a bit after the fury she had felt at being injured in the first place. Seeing that his attempt at lightening her sour state had succeeded, Kaidan's smile only widened as he gave her a small nod.  
"Much better."

* * *

"Haxon my friend, I'm pleased to say our mission here is a success," I stated gladly as I lay back against the roof and gave out a deep sigh of relief.

"_Indeed. The Dart's tracking device is fully operational and feeding Shepard's current position directly into my homing systems. But with this operation nearly completed, what happens now?"_ the A.I. asked intently, still viewing the spectacle with fascination. Giving a knowing smile, I gently laced my fingers together across my stomach, crossed my boots at their ankles, and nodded down to the Council Pit.

"Now we simply sit back, relax for a bit, and watch the show." Within my head I could almost hear the epic notes of the Spectre Induction Soundtrack playing in the background, adding that same mesmerizing feel to the whole scene playing out before me that it had during this part in the game.

"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel," the Asari Counselor began saying. The Salarian Counselor folded his arms and straightened up, looking almost regal in his flowing black and red robes.

"Spectres are not trained…but chosen. Individuals forged in the fires of service and battle, those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file," he said, nodding his hooded head down to Shepard as he spoke.

"Spectres are an ideal, a symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will," the Asari continued, raising her head proudly. The Turian Counselor placed his hands behind his back, setting his jaw and standing tall in classic military rigidness.  
"Spectres bear a great burden. They are the protectors of galactic peace, both our first and _last_ line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."

With a genuine smile and a sweeping hand gesture down to the Speaker's platform, the Asari finished the momentous proclamation.  
"You are the first Human Spectre, Commander. This is a great achievement for you and your entire species."

Closing his eyes for a moment, Shepard bowed his head in deep respect.  
"I'm honoured Counselors."

"We're sending you into the Traverse after Saren. He's a fugitive from justice, so you are authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate him," the Salarian stated.  
"Do we have any leads that might help me find him?" Shepard asked with a cocked eyebrow.  
"We will forward any relevant files to Ambassador Udina," the Turian said with a nod over to the Ambassador.  
"This meeting of the Council is adjourned," the Asari stated with finality before she and her fellow Counselors turned and departed.  
"There you have it. The first Human Spectre knighted right before our eyes," I stated with a firm clap of my hands as I sat up straight.

"_I thought it would be at least another decade before the Council would even consider accepting a Human," _Haxon remarked as Udina and Anderson began speaking to Shepard about the various things he would need before beginning his chase.

"Well with this over, and Shepard now inadvertently giving us everything we need, I think its time we got out of here and headed back to the ship."

Quickly standing up and moving back across the roof to the area I had landed on when I first got up here, I extended my left arm and activated my grappling hook.

"_Are you sure you want to try this again?" _Haxon asked as the Serrated Dart-Head from Hell snapped out from my gauntlet.

"I think I'm just going to swing across this time. When I come overtop of the soil beds, disengage the dart-hook and allow me to fall," I instructed as I aimed up toward the top roof of another walkway on the other side of the sitting area surrounded by trees and bushes, pressing the fire button and shooting the dart across the distance into the wall far up ahead of me. With a tight breath, I leapt from the roof, swinging through the air on the grappling-hook's cable like Tarzan. As I glided across the third vine covered level of the soil beds, Haxon caused the serrated edges of the dart head to fold back up into their main body, which in turn allowed me to retract the cable in a flash and fall down onto the second soil bed, softly landed sprayed out on my back within a thick cluster of bushes and exotic flowers.

"See, that wasn't so bad, and still nobody…" I began as I sat up on the crushed plants and started brushing myself off. Suddenly however, a faint whine briefly came out of my left gauntlet, accompanied by an erratic flash of pixeled light racing across the surface of my body.

"…Saw me?" I finished with a frown. As I patted myself down in confusion, a thought came to mind that caused me to stiffen in apprehension.

"Haxon, please tell me…"

"_The cloaking device is malfunctioning, everyone _can_ see you now! It appears to have suffered damage that must have been accumulating since the Citadel's Defense Turret shot us down!"_ Rolling backwards into a crouch farther within the bushes, I kept my head down low as I peered through the thick crisscrossing foliage, eyeing several people chitchatting in the sitting area just one soil-bed down from me.

"Can you fix it? Remember we're still Number One on C-Sec's hit list," I whispered quietly before ducking my head even lower under the branches surrounding me, having just sighted a squad of fully armoured Human Chamber guards move into the area.

"_The more I look into it the more damage I'm finding, this'll take a bit longer than some of my other patch jobs. I'm sorry Axel, this could take me a good ten minutes to fix properly,"_ the A.I. apologized as he reviewed the beat up device. Giving an understanding nod, I squinted my eyes a bit as I summed up each guard that was ushering any politicians or civilians out of the sitting area, while others were poking the barrels of their assault rifles into the shrubbery of the first soil-bed in search of something.

"No worries, I just need to find something to cover my head with," I said before a small smirk crept across my face, my gaze zeroing in on one guard in particular that had just sat himself down on a bench close to my position.

"And I think I just found it." Employing as much stealth into my movements as my Army training had given me, I slowly advanced through the greenery down to the first level.

* * *

"There's no sign of what caused the scream over here. Lets move the search up one level," one of the helmeted and armoured guards said to the others after they had completed their sweep of the sitting area.

"You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up in a minute," one of the guards said with a wave of his hand as he tiredly sat down on one of the area's benches, resting his back against the first level of soil-beds that ran behind him. As he did so, he laid his rifle down beside himself and pulled his helmet off his head. Laying that down too, he reached to his belt and pulled out a small container filled with cigarettes.

"Come on Frank, not now. We just got our first Spectre finally, don't you think we should put a little extra effort into today's shift to show the Council we actually deserved that," one of the men asked over to the younger guard with a gesture up to the Council Pit. Frank merely stuck the cigarette in his mouth and casually pulled out a lighter from his pocket.

"Everybody's got their vices Bill, and I haven't indulged mine all day. Don't worry, I'll be with you guys in a bit," Frank said over to the other guy as he ignited the lighter and placed it at the tip of his cigarette, holding it there for a moment before a wisp of smoke began to roll up. All the other guards just sighed in annoyed defeat, some shaking their heads with distain as they turned and began making their way out of the area.

"Just make sure nobody sees you," Bill commented over his shoulder on his way out. Frank merely chuckled as he sucked in a breath and exhaled a cloud of smoke, basking in the relaxing feeling of the nicotine that was beginning to run through his system.

However, that feeling was abruptly shattered as a large metal scale covered arm flashed into existence and wrapped tightly around his neck!

Frank's eyes bulged as the arm squeezed tighter, cutting off his flow of air and preventing him from crying out. Dropping his cigarette, the guard grabbed on to the attacking arm with one hand, desperately trying to pull it away from himself while he extended his free hand out to Bill and the others as they continued walking away from him. Even as he tried forcing a scream or a gasp to gain his fellow guards' attention, Frank's attacker roughly clamped their second hand over his mouth and nose, snuffing out the small choking noises coming from his throat. After a moment of struggling, Frank's eyes widened in paralyzing fear as Bill and the other guards obliviously walked away until they had disappeared from view, leaving him completely alone and without help in the deserted sitting area. Then quite suddenly the guard's mysterious attacker began pulling him up from the bench into the bushes of the soil-bed!

Despite his rapid thrashing and kicking, Frank could only manage a weak scream against the gloved palm of his assailant as he was dragged out of sight deeper into the multi-coloured foliage.

* * *

"_Have you done this before?"_ Haxon asked in alarm as I roughly threw back my weight and pulled the panicking guard into the thickest most concealing part of the shrubbery, grunting slightly as I turned over and forced him onto his front.

"In training, dozens of times…" I began through bared teeth, fighting against the man's struggles as they started becoming more erratic, dodging my head from side to side to avoid his flailing arms as he tried reaching back to grab me.  
"In real life, only once or twice," I finished, pressing my left knee into his back and pulling myself up slightly, making the guard painfully arch his torso and fuel every last bit of strength he had left into pulling my arm away from his neck.

"_But you do know how to do it without killing him?"_ Haxon asked quickly as the guard began to slowly weaken in his fighting, his throat letting out a raspy wheezing sound.

"The trick is in restricting the carotid artery for the right amount of time, that way they'll fall asleep about a minute before they die, giving the attacker enough opportunity to let go of them before its too late," I ground out as I put all of my own strength into the final constriction, tightening the grip my left hand had on my right arm so that I was correctly squeezing the before mentioned artery. For another second the guard continued weakening until his hands finally fell away from my arm, the wheezing sound coming from behind the other hand I had clamped over his mouth and nose becoming a constant background noise.

"Relax. I'm a doctor," I whispered into his ear through my own labored breath, followed soon after by the guard's entire body going limp.

For a moment I held him tightly to make sure he was knocked out before releasing my grip on his neck and pressing two fingers against the artery I had restricted.  
"Sleep tight pal, and thanks for the helmet," I said with a small smile as I felt the thumping of the guard's pulse against my fingers, showing that he was still alive and well.

"_So: soldier, fugitive, pirate, Iron Man, intergalactic traveller, and now…doctor? What exactly _haven't_ you achieved in your life?"_ Haxon listed off humourously as I quickly pushed through the leaves of the bushes and climbed out of the soil-bed into the open space of the sitting area.

"Well I'm not actually a doctor, that was just a line I picked up from a Sherlock Holmes movie," I said with a chuckle as I looked around the area, seeing no witnesses within incriminating range. Turning back to the bed, I picked up the guard's assault rifle and tossed it into the shrubs, followed by the remains of his cigarette after I picked up the smoking death stick and crushed it against the bench.  
"Smoking kills anyway, Frank. It's a disgusting habit," I said loosely over to the bushes the sleeping guard was lying in, stooping down and picking up Frank's helmet before quickly sliding it over my head.

"It's a bit tight but it should do," I said with a wince as I shoved the smaller fitting helmet down over my face, looking out ahead of myself through its clear slit visor.

With my identity now safe for the moment, I began briskly walking out of the sitting area into the main stretch of the Chambers. Straight up ahead, Darren's taxi was still patiently awaiting my arrival, with the enthusiastic hippy beckoning to me through the windshield at the moment. However I chose to stop for a second as I saw the other hover taxi that had originally brought Shepard and his crew begin to rise up overtop of the pink tree they had parked beside, the Commander's side-profile visible in the front seat through the window. Tracking it with my eyes, I watched the taxi screech off through the air down the length of the Chambers, disappearing from sight as it banked left and exited through one of the many Air Traffic entranceways built into the ceiling.  
"See you guys soon," I said to myself with a chuckle as I thought back to the Replicator Dart that was tracking Shepard at this very moment.

"_Maybe not as soon as you think,"_ Haxon said forebodingly, causing me to frown and look around for what he meant. Right away I froze as I saw it, my muscles tightening in apprehension. Across from me on the other side of the Chambers, questioning random citizens and politicians with a detachment of C-Sec agents flanking them, were two people I hadn't been expecting to see again.

"Well, I guess Alec's 95% odds actually paid off," I said with an impressed cock of my eyebrow.

It was Bailey and Chellick!

Both the Turian and the Human looked just as ragged as they had the last time I had seen them, except now they had a nice addition of dark soot marks covering their T-shirted uniform and armour, most likely left behind by Alec's surprise explosive.  
"_I'm detecting roughly twenty additional C-Sec agents fanning throughout the Chambers, they'd get to us before Darren would have a chance to take off. What're we going to do?"_ Haxon asked as he pointed out the multi-racial squads of agents that had also begun to question people in the area.

"We're going to cause a distraction. And I have just the thing in mind," I said slyly as I saw one of the elements for my new plan leaning against a nearby pillar.

Walking casually with my hands placed behind my back, I began quietly humming a slow-paced tune as I came up behind a pair of Chamber guards leaning against that said pillar, both of them fully immersed in conversation. With the deftest of hands, I easily brushed past one of them and slipped his compacted Kessler pistol from his belt, spinning around and moving away before either could become suspicious of my presence.

"_What are you going to do with that?"_ Haxon asked quietly as I activated the pistol and kept it hidden behind my lower back. Without answering, I passed close behind a nearby Human civilian of similar height and build to me.

Then without warning, I pulled the trigger several times, firing out multiple rounds from my back into the floor next to the two of us!

As screams from startled civilians and politicians materialized in response to the sudden loud noise, I quickly spun around and shoved the smoking gun into the back of the man's belt before anyone could see me, jumping away from him immediately with my hands held high in a dramatic show of frightened surrender.

"OH MINE GOD!" I shouted in the best and most guttural German accent I could manage to disguise my voice, jabbing a shaky finger at the startled man as he ripped the stolen Kessler out of his belt and stared at it in wide-eyed horror.

"HE HAS UN GUN! HE IS UN KRAZY MAN! SOMEONE STOOP HIM!" I made my voice boom out across the Chambers, catching the attention of every civilian and agent now looking this way.

"Hey! That's my gun!" barked the Chamber guard I'd slipped the gun from as he fervently began searching for his sidearm on his empty belt. As he said this, he and his partner along with a dozen other Chamber guards all began charging toward the panic stricken man holding the weapon.  
"What? No! Wait! Its not me!" the innocent man began saying frantically to the sprinting authorities, dropping the Kessler and spinning around in a circle with his hands stretched out before him.

But even as he begged, he soon gave out a yell of fear as the guards ganged up and pounced on him from all sides, submerging his body with their own in a harsh Football style Dog Pile!

Just before that happened, I had sprinted out to the center of the Chambers near the pink tree that a confused but grinning Darren was still parked beside, frenziedly jabbing my arms back to the incident going on behind me.

"It is he! It is ze terrorist Axel! He vill kill us all! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" I shouted to everyone, viciously shaking my head and raising my hands over myself like a fear-induced maniac.

I grinned widely behind my stolen helmet's facemask as a collection of screams and shouts rose up and shook the very walls of the Chambers, the entire population of civilians within the area turning and dashing in random directions!

"Suuuuckerrrs," I chimed to myself in my normal voice as I watched Bailey and Chellick struggle against the dozens of people scrambling past them, while most of the C-Sec agents they had brought began suffering through the same trouble as well.

"Come on dude! Let's get outta here!" Darren's voice suddenly called to me over the chaos, coming from the urgently waving driver as he opened up the taxi.  
"That's the best suggestion I've heard lately!" I commented before breaking into a sprint over toward him.

"Stop that man!" Bailey's voice ordered to anyone nearby as he recognized my armour from across the room. Luckily there was only one Turian guard standing between the taxi and me.

Ripping Frank's helmet from my head, I drew back my arm and pitched it like a baseball at the oncoming Turian, catching the man in the face and dropping him to the floor with a cry.  
"Axel, STOP!" Chellick roared out from off to the side as he broke through the hysterical individuals running back and forth in front of him, bringing his drawn pistol to bear on my fleeing form.

"GO! I shouted to Darren, diving headfirst into the backseat of the taxi at the last second before Chellick began firing rounds after me, several of which tore into the upholster of the car's interior. With a smack of the button that re-sealed the taxi's doors and roof, Darren's fingers flew across the controls, blasting the hover car up into the air and lurching us forward into a screaming acceleration down the Chambers. Both the hippy and I flinched as sparks began shooting up along the taxi's exterior hull, Chellick and several other Turian agents unleashing a sporadic barrage of weapons' fire on us before the taxi flew out of range and disappeared through one of the Chamber's Air-Traffic exits.

* * *

"Cease fire! Cease fire, they're gone!" Chellick barked to the other Turians over the gunfire and screaming surrounding them.

"We need someone after that taxi before he gets too far out!" Bailey shouted to the Turian lieutenant as he shoved his way through civilians. Chellick nodded and activated his omni-tool.

"Way ahead of you! Echos 12, 15, and 20, you have a go, repeat you have a go! Force Axel's escape craft into an emergency landing now!" he shouted into the microphone of his device, one that was connecting him to three Mantis gunships waiting on standby outside the Tower!

* * *

"Dude! That was one of the most insane getaways I've ever seen!" Darren called back to me with a laugh and a wild grin as he pushed the taxi to its maximum limits, blasting us down the radial Embassy Walkway on a frantic course back to the Military Docks.

"If you think that was insane, you should see what some of my friends can do," I answered as I struggled to pull myself up from the floor. However I was roughly thrown back down as a storm of concussive thermal rounds began impacting into the side of the car, a combined barrage briefly slamming against us from the cannons of three Mantises that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in hot pursuit!

"_Unidentified taxi, you are aiding and transporting a dangerous fugitive…"_ an angered voice began barking through the dashboard's radio, but was suddenly silenced by a slap of Darren's hand on the cutoff switch.

"You know they can just shoot us down if they want to right?" I asked after finally managing to pull myself up in between the two front seats. A devilish smile formed on the hippy's face as I said that, followed by him quickly pulling and buckling the strap for his seatbelt across his chest.

"You might want to hold on to somethin' pal," was all he said before sharply pressing a combination of buttons and sending the taxi into a steep nosedive. I heard myself yell as I fell back, the car diving down into the main levels of the Walkway before pulling up just in time and briefly skimming across the surface of the Presidium Lakes!

"_Haven't we already been down this route before?!"_ Haxon asked sarcastically as the roar of the Mantises stayed close behind us, each gunship following our path in single-file formation like a trio of ducklings following their mother.

"Except last time we were getting shot at while going the _other_ way!" I agreed with a jab of my thumb back to the rapidly shrinking Citadel Tower, remembering our flight from Agent F'Loson in the Iron Man suit across this very same terrain. Up in front of us Darren was laughing again as he sharply banked the taxi into a hard right, throwing me around the car again as he flew us at dangerous speeds back into the main Embassies within the Presidium Ring.

"Look on the better side of things boys, C-Sec gunships are prohibited from firing below the Presidium's hull level. And since we're actually inside the interior of the Embassy District, they can't do shit to us now!" Darren explained, pulling up the taxi a bit as we flashed overtop of several bridges, causing many people to scream and dive to the ground as we and our procession of gunships passed by.

"Yeah, now we're just in danger of accidentally running someone over," I commented dryly while still trying to pick myself up, since I hadn't managed to put my seatbelt on yet.

Suddenly a loud crack shot out from the cannon of the Mantis following right behind us, the car jerking forward for a moment as something slammed into its rear thrusters. Immediately the lights on the taxi's dashboard began to flicker, and a decreasing humming sound came out from Darren's controls while the car itself began to subtly slow down in speed.

"Unless of course they fire attachable EMP devices onto my car," the hippy stated hesitantly as he turned to me with an awkward expression. We jerked forward again, this time more harshly as the Mantis rammed its front end into the car's malfunctioning propulsion, nudging us further back down toward the Lakes that flashed by underneath us.

"How much farther do you think this thing can take us before it loses all power?" I asked quickly as I brought my head back up in between the front seats.

"Probably no more than a few kilometers man, sorry it had to end like this," Darren apologized with a sad shrug. I merely gave a mischievous smile as I clapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, I've got a plan. Bring us out of the Embassies back into open space," I said as I pointed up through the windshield toward the Fast Transit Lanes zooming overtop of us. Darren frowned in confusion.  
"But dude, that'll make us an open target again."  
"Just trust me, I know what I'm doing," I said reassuringly. Darren could only shrug again as he went to work on the failing flight-controls.  
"You're the boss, boss." With a draining screech of protest, the slowing hover taxi shot up skyward with every last ounce of power it could muster, cutting diagonally through the Fast Transit Lanes with the three Mantises following close behind.

"I'm givin' her everything she's got! If you wanna use that plan of yours you better do it now man," the driver said as many of the lights in front of us shut off, and the power coming out from the thrusters snuffed out with a hiss. Quickly I extended my right hand and pressed my gloved palm against the surface of the dashboard.

"Prepare to have your mind blown," I said calmly before closing my eyes and willing the power of the ring to channel a surge of energy into the dying vehicle, almost exactly in the same way that I had done to Irwin's car seconds before we were about to be arrested. In an instant, the ring lit up bright silver and shot out a familiar web of silver electrical arcs that sunk into the dashboard and disappeared.

Suddenly both Darren and I shouted in surprise as we were thrown back in our seats, all the lights on the dashboard coming back to full power, the thrusters on the taxi roaring alive and blasting us through the air three times faster than the vehicle was capable of!

"This…is…totally…WICKED!" Darren managed to shout back to me over the roaring hum coming from his car's engine, the massive G-Forces pressing against us making his cheeks ripple wildly and his eyes squint, slurring his words to the point of barely being able to understand them.

* * *

"_We had them disabled, but now they've powered back up and are accelerating out of range!"_ the pilot of the lead Mantis finished reporting back to Chellick and Bailey through the Turian's omni-tool. At the moment the two officers were speeding out from the Tower in one of the C-Sec patrol cars they had taken to get there, joined by four others carrying the agents they had brought with them.  
"Can you catch them?" Bailey asked within range of the microphone as he leaned closer to the front passenger seat Chellick was sitting in.

"_I don't think you understand what I'm telling you lieutenant, they're flying at near Super-Sonic speed!"_ Chellick scowled as he brought his face closer to the omni-tool.  
"A superior officer just asked you a question pilot. At near Super Sonic speeds, can you keep up with them?!" There was a pause before the pilot answered in a calmer voice.

"_Hover taxi's aren't built to handle that kind of stress on their engines, soon it'll burn out and crash. We can keep up from a distance but we won't be able to stop it; when it happens we can land and render any medical assistance that may be required, depending on how bad the damage is."_ Bailey jerked his head forward with a look of apprehension on his face.  
"That isn't good enough! We can't risk having Axel die on us or this whole thing will have been for nothing!"

"_That's the best we can do Bailey! We're not exactly in control of the situation anymore!"_ With that the pilot severed the link between himself and Chellick.

"Get us to the Military Docks as fast as possible! I don't care how many speeding regulations you need to break!" the Turian ordered over to the driver of the car, both he and Bailey strapping themselves in and preparing for the worst.

* * *

A loud explosion rocked the taxi, followed by another burst of flame and debris shooting out from the back end of the vehicle.

"Annnnnd now that's the second thruster gone! This ship of yours better show up soon!" Darren shouted over the groaning protest of his car, struggling at the controls to keep the flaming/rocking craft airborne as we began shooting across the lowest stretch of the Docks.

"There it is! Far dead-ahead!" I said with a jab of my finger to the windshield, having just been able to spot the miniature form of the _Corsica_ sitting in stark contrast to the enormous hulls of the Alliance or Council war-ships docked nearby.  
"Groovy man! Now we just need to slow this baby down," Darren said with a grin as he began pressing his foot against the brake mechanism. However after a moment, a worried frown formed on his face once he noticed nothing was happening.

"Well? Hit the brakes," I said as we continued flying closer to the Corvette without slowing down.

"I am, its not working," Darren said as he jabbed his foot down again, still getting no response. The car rocked from another explosion as our super charged speed blew out the car's third thruster.

"We've only got one left! Hit the brakes harder!" I shouted over the screech of the taxi as it began to shake more violently then it had before. Darren slammed his foot down all the way and kept it there, but the car didn't even slow down a fraction.

"I'm holdin' the damn thing down, nothings working!" he shouted, both of us feeling a profound anxiety begin to creep up as the flaming car flew within a kilometer of the ship. Suddenly another explosion jerked us forward as the fourth and final thruster blew out.

_Now_ we were definitely slowing down, and dropping from the air at the same time!

Both of us began shouting at the other about brakes or hitting the bakes, our voices quickly descending into gibberish until finally we simply resorted to screaming in fright, our eyes wide and our limbs bracing against anything as the taxi slammed down onto the platform stretch!

Smashing nose first and completing a front flip through the air, the demolished taxi crashed and skid several feet, careering in a series of circles before coming to a painful screeching stop.

"_That actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,"_ Haxon remarked after we had completely settled.

"That's easy for a disembodied A.I. to say," I fired back sarcastically while hissing in pain; rubbing the newly forming goose egg that the crash had delivered to the back of my head. Wincing against my re-enflamed bruising and eyebrow cut, I pulled myself up from the floor into a sitting position, taking notice of all the shattered windows and the roaring fires still coming from the back of the vehicle. Looking ahead, I raised a leg and sent a useless kick into the taxi's left side door in an attempt to wrench it open. Almost exactly like last time after our crash in Irwin's car, I made two more attempts at kicking the door open, both of them ending in similar failure.

But then I remembered how we had actually gotten out of that car, with the help of a Force push from Yoda that had blasted the door completely off of the vehicle. Closing my eyes, I drew back both my hands and clenched my fingers as I willed a great force of invisible energy to swirl within my palms. The ring glowed silver for a second before I snapped my arms forward, releasing the built up energy in a concentrated burst that slammed into the door and blew it away from the chassis with a loud tearing of metal.

"Thanks Yoda," I said with an astonished smile, looking down at my hands in amazement at what I'd just done. Suddenly, a pained groaning from the driver's seat caught my immediate attention.

"Darren!" I said as I yanked myself out of the car, moving to the front and dropping to one knee next to the newly exposed driver section, quickly reaching in and ripping the hippy's mangled seatbelt off his chest. A stream of blood was trickling down the side of his head from within the folds of his shaggy blonde hair, his purple-lensed glasses having gotten thrown from his face during the crash. Several small bleeding cuts and abrasions travelled up the side of his left arm and pectoral region, mostly thanks to the many tiny glass shards that had stuck into him after his window had smashed apart.

Darren groaned again, his eyes remaining closed and chest barely moving.

"Darren? Darren! Come on man wake up! Don't you die on me now!" I ordered sternly, slapping the flat of my fingers against his cheek while shaking him by his un-injured shoulder. Immediately his eyes snapped open and he latched a hand onto my shoulder.

"That…was fucking _awesome_!" he announced to me with a wide grin, showing several bloodstained teeth before he began chuckling happily. I gave a wide grin of my own after seeing he was okay, despite his bloody appearance.

"I'm glad you think so, your car's kind of trashed to shit now," I said as I swept a hand to the wreckage we were sitting in. But Darren only waved it off.

"Ah forget the car man, the insurance will cover it just fine. Just being able to trash it like this was what made it all worth while," he said as we both looked at the roaring flames engulfing the back area of the vehicle. As I was about to say something else, I heard the humming screech of Mantis repulsors begin to echo closer and closer toward us. Standing up, I wasn't surprised to quickly see the three gunships that had been chasing us earlier B-Lining it directly to the crash-site.

"Come on we gotta go!" I said as I began trying to pull him out of his seat, but he only grimaced in pain from some unseen injury.  
"Nah man I'll just slow ya down. You go on without me, I'll try to hold em' off when they come to make the arrest." My eyes widened and my face scrunched in horrified confusion.  
"What? Darren you can't," I said in protest. The hippy only gave a wince as he leaned back in his seat, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down onto one knee next to him.

"My part in this journey's over dude, its up to you now. For whatever reason the Great Spirit brought you here, be it to topple a corrupt government, free the oppressed, or save this galaxy from an Armageddon, you go and you fulfill that plan. I believe in you! Besides, this won't be the first time C-Sec's slapped me in handcuffs," my fellow Canadian said with a smile that seemed to contain wisdom beyond his years, grabbing and firmly squeezing my shoulder with his other hand. I was dumbstruck as a smile of my own crept on my face.

"Dude, that's deep," I said after a moment. Darren nodded enthusiastically.  
"Dude," he agreed in his laid-back voice.  
"DUDE!" we both drew out in unison just like before when we had first met, laughing heartily as we embraced each other in a fond hug.  
"Thanks for all your help Darren. Keep what's left of the fifty thousand as a gift from me," I said with a nod as we broke from each other and I stood up.  
"I will brother, thank you," he said with another smile as we both grabbed and shook the other's hand in farewell, taking an extra second to flip them upward so that we were holding on to each other's palms in the Bro-Grip style for a moment before letting go.

"I'm gonna miss you, take care of yourself," I said with another smile and a snap salute before turning and dashing away from the taxi wreckage, the harsh beams of Mantis searchlights travelling quickly over toward us from the approaching gunships.

"Not as much as I'll miss you! We love you man!" Darren's voice called after me as he waved goodbye.

**Continue chapter…**


	11. I am Iron Man? Part 5

**Chapter 7 finished, **_**Finally!**_

"Haxon, is the cloaking device repaired enough to conceal me again?" I asked quickly as I pressed two fingers against my tiny earpiece, sprinting down the massive Docking stretch in the direction of the _Corsica_.

"_Partially, but I'll only be able to sustain it for about five minutes."_

I nodded as I maintained my pace as best as possible, bringing up my left gauntlet.

"That should do, we've only got less then a quarter of a kilometer to cover," I stated before tapping the activation button, vanishing from sight in a pixeled flash before several armed platoons of Human and Turian marines began running past me, streaming out from their docked ships on their way toward the wreckage of Darren's taxi.

For the entire five minutes Haxon was able to give me, I ran as fast as my body could maintain, only altering my path to avoid running into patrolling marines or docking obstacles such as machinery or loading crates scattered across the platform. Eventually my time limit ran out after I had closed to within a mere handful of piers from the _Corsica_, the cloaking device giving a final dying sputter before causing me to become visible again in a sporadic flash. As this happened I had to quickly duck behind a set of crates, just managing to avoid being seen by a large squadron of Human marines that were marching down the platform.

"…C-Sec now says that Axel is on foot and most likely headed this way, they want us to set up a defensive checkpoint across the span of the Docks and halt any unauthorized personnel from advancing further," the squadron's commander was saying, walking alongside them as each man or woman activated their weapons.

"Don't worry captain, that scum bag isn't gonna get past us. Am I right marines?!" one of the other officers in the squadron said before loudly calling back to the rest of the unit.

"OORAH!" they all roared in unison. Even while quietly huffing and puffing from my intense run, I could only shake my head with a blank expression as I peeked out of hidding to watch them continue marching farther and farther away from me.

"Jarheads…" I muttered before turning and stealthily continuing on toward the Corvette.

After another few minutes, I finally came within sight of the _Corsica_, pleasantly surprised to find the immediate area mostly deserted of marines and several of the piers surrounding the ship being completely empty after their docked vessels had departed sometime prior to my arrival. It was at this moment, when I had closed to within three piers of my getaway ship, that I heard a familiar voice whispering over to me.

"Psssst, Iron Man! Yo Iron Man over here!" Alec's voice called over after I had begun moving past the second pier closest to the _Corsica_'s. Spinning my head in the direction of the sound, my eyes widened and a confused scowl formed on my face as I saw the Guardian kneeling behind several discarded shipping containers near the end of the pier, practically waving his arms back and forth over his head for any nearby security personnel to see!

Briskly crossing over to his location while remaining as quiet as possible, I managed to move up the length of the pier without being seen by anyone.

"What the hell are you doing here? I said stay on the ship!" I hissed to the Guardian as I moved into cover beside him, jabbing a finger over toward the Corvette across the pier next to us. Alec held up both hands in surrender, but with an eager smile on his face.

"I know you did, but on a hunch I had the Replicators check into the manifests for all the docked ships in this area," he began, twirling his finger in a circle above us to indicate all of the Military Docks.  
"So?" I asked tersely, glancing back to the main platform stretch on the lookout for any marines or C-Sec agents that may have been coming this way.

"So, look at what they just found!" Alec's mad grin was already spread wide across his face as he pointed down underneath the pier across from us on the other side, motioning back in the direction I'd just run from. Squinting as I leaned closer to the edge of our own pier, my eyes suddenly widened when I saw what he was talking about.

About half a kilometer away from us, jutting out from the surface of the purple wall-mass less than fifty feet below the underbelly of the Docking platforms we were connected to now, was what appeared to be a small private docking pier.  
However, it was what was attached to this pier by two magnetic clamps that immediately caught my attention.

It was a familiar black and silver Alliance Frigate, with eight bold white letters painted across the side of its main hull.

NORMANDY was the iconic name they spelt out.

A wide grin of astonishment materialized as I snapped my head back to Alec with an obvious question in my eyes, getting an enthusiastic nod of confirmation from him without a single word.

"You know what's weird? Just a few hours ago I was standing on that very beach while the Allies were shelling the crap out of it," I commented with a chuckle to the Guardian while jabbing a thumb over to the _Normandy_.  
"Look who's showing up now," Alec said before briefly pointing to the ship as well. Squinting again, I could just barely make out two blurs stepping from a concealed entrance; one a deep blue colour while the other was a plain white. Neither of them were very discernable from this distance, but I could tell right away who they were.

It was Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina, both of them moving forward until they had disappeared behind the frontal body of the _Normandy_. Several seconds of nothing happened until the two were followed by six more blurs, one of them being a massive figure dressed in bright scarlet red.

"Looks like Shepard finally added Wrex to the team," I remarked on the easily discernable appearance of the Krogan Battle Master, also recognizing the jet-black armour of Commander Shepard as he walked ahead of the group.

"So since you showed up back here without your cloaking device on, all of the marines left in this area are swarming toward some taxi crash farther back, and the _Corsica'_s radio channels started picking up transmissions about the Council Chambers getting hit by a terrorist scare, I'm just going to assume that your little venture was a success," Alec listed off with a deliberate look of expectancy. Immediately I nodded with a thin smile, lifting up my right arm so that it was in between us.

"Haxon, would you please activate the Dart's listening device so that we can find out where our first destination is going to be?" I asked politely in a proud tone.

"_With pleasure,"_ Haxon answered, his voice reflecting my feelings. For a moment a low garbled blare of white noise screeched out from a small speaker built into my gauntlet before several familiar voices began to clear through.

"…_ard, Captain Anderson is stepping down as commanding officer of the _Normandy_…"_ Udina's voice started filtering through, beginning somewhere in the middle of one of his lines. However Alec and I didn't get to hear the rest of it because of several radio-tinged voices echoing out near our position, coming directly from several Council marines that were patrolling past our pier!

With a quiet gasp in unison, Alec and I both scrambled to push ourselves into deeper cover.

* * *

On the _Normandy_'s private docking pier placed far overtop of C-Sec Academy, Commander Shepard stood at attention with his hands placed behind his back. The motely crew of Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko, Garrus Vakarian, and Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya stood quietly at his flanks, along with the team's newest addition that they had picked up at the foot of the elevator leading up to this very pier, the fearsome and intimidating Krogan bounty hunter Urdnot Wrex.

At the moment they were all listening to Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina speaking directly with Shepard, giving the Commander the necessary parting information on the _Normandy_, most of which he already knew about.

What none of them knew about however was the invisible Replicator Dart silently latched onto the back plating of Shepard's N7 armour, it's hidden listening device picking up on every word being spoken!

"...treat her well, Commander," Anderson finished saying, folding his arms with an indication of his head over to the sleek Frigate docked next to them.

"I'll take good care of her sir," Shepard replied, giving his own nod of respect to the newly retired Captain. An almost sad smile came across Anderson's face as he nodded in return, both men locking their deep brown eyes with each other.  
"I know you will Commander," he said softly. Suddenly Shepard raised one of his hands as if to belay his former superior's relief.

"However, I do want the truth before we leave. Why are you stepping down Captain?" the Commander asked with a quick point of his finger.  
"You needed your own ship, a Spectre can't answer to anyone but the Council, and it _is_ about high time I stepped down," Anderson answered with a small shrug.  
"Come on Captain, come clean with us," Kaidan pressed as he stepped forward, coming up next to Shepard.  
"You owe me that much Anderson," Shepard nodded in agreement with his lieutenant. The Captain cocked an eyebrow before giving a quiet huff of defeat, his shoulders dropping as if a great weight were being lifted from them.

"I was in your shoes twenty years ago Shepard. They were considering _me_ for the Spectres," Anderson conceded, first gesturing to the Commander before lightly tapping himself on the chest. Most of the _Normandy_ squad, except Wrex who was eyeing the whole meeting with barely veiled disinterest, widened their eyes and looked at each other in shock at this revelation. Shepard kept his own eyes level with Anderson and made sure his features remained in a firm poker-face.

"Why didn't you ever mention this?" Shepard finally asked with a cocked eyebrow (he actually does that quite a lot). Anderson's aged face suddenly became hard with carefully controlled anger, reminiscent of a time long ago when that anger had been far less controlled and ten times more potent.

"What was I suppose to say? 'I could have been a Spectre but I _blew it_'? I failed Shepard. It's not something I'm proud of, or very willing to talk about. Ask me later and I'll tell you the whole damn story. For now though, all you need to know is that I was sent on a mission with Saren and he made sure the Council rejected me. I had my shot Commander. It came and went. Now you have a chance to make up for my mistakes," he said firmly, raising his voice slightly before shaking his head and calming down. Shepard closed his eyes and gave an understanding nod, signaling that the subject was dropped for the time being.

"I won't let you down, sir," he responded sincerely.

"Saren's gone. Don't even try to find him. But we know what he's after, the Conduit. He's has his legions of Geth scouring the Traverse, looking for clues to its location," Anderson started saying, steering the topic back to the main concern.

"We had reports of Geth sightings in the Feros system shortly before our colony there dropped out of contact. And there have been sightings around Noveria," the Ambassador said, deciding now to begin adding his knowledge to the conversation after having remained oddly quiet for the duration of Shepard and Anderson's exchange.

"Find out what Saren was after on Feros and Noveria. Maybe you can find out where the Conduit is before he does," the Captain said with a sweeping gesture out to the vast emptiness of air and space just off the end of the _Normandy_'s pier.

"The Reapers are the real threat," Shepard reminded to both men.

"I'm with the Council on this one Shepard, I'm not sure they even exist," Udina said with a dismissive shake of his head. Anderson raised both eyebrows and gave a plausible nod to the Commander.  
"But if they _do_ exist, the Conduit's the key to bringing them back. Stop Saren from finding it and we stop the Reapers from returning." A small smile of deadly promise formed on Shepard's face after that.

"I'll stop him," was his only answer, earning a small nod of understanding from Anderson.

"We do also have one more lead. Matriarch Benezia, the other voice on the Quarian's recording…" Udina began with a raising of his hand. Shepard could faintly hear a quiet huff of annoyance and an accented "my name is _Tali_," muttered from his Engineer squad-mate near the back of the group.  
"She has a daughter, a scientist who specializes in the Protheans," the Ambassador continued without interruption.

"We don't know if she's involved but it might be a good idea to try and find her, see what she knows. Her name's Liara, Dr. Liara T'Soni. We have reports she was exploring an archeological dig on one of the uncharted worlds in the Artemis Tau Cluster." The mention of Benezia having a daughter caused Shepard to narrow his eyes in suspicion, his mind conjuring up images of some evil Biotic apprentice to Saren's second-in-command secretly searching across desolate planets to steal Prothean artifacts in order to further the rogue Turian's goals.

"Sounds like the Artemis Tau Cluster should warrant our immediate attention," Shepard said after a moment of thinking it over. Anderson held up his hand.  
"It's your decision Commander. You're a Spectre now, you don't answer to us." Immediately Udina jabbed a reminding finger, his voice and tone containing a firm warning.  
"But your actions still reflect on Humanity as a whole. You make a mess and _I_ get stuck cleaning it up."

* * *

"_Hey, who knows what can happen out there. But I will keep it in mind to try and not make things harder for you, Ambassador. I'll make the Artemis Tau Cluster our top priority; if Benezia has her daughter acting as a shadow-recon agent for Prothean ruins, bringing her in could help us a great deal in finding out what Saren's up to or where he's hiding."_

"Got it!" I whispered in victory with a snap of my fingers, followed by Haxon shutting off the listening device soon after Shepard's voice finished speaking.  
"So he's going after Liara. That means Therum is our first stop," I said to Alec enthusiastically. Alec's wide grin returned as he clasped his hands together.

"Captain Sorenson, we _finally_ have our heading!"

An old pain suddenly stung at me as Alec mentioned my rank, one that caused me to close my eyes and shudder slightly without him noticing.

'…_it is the decision of this Board to promote you to the full rank of Captain…'_ my eyes opened immediately as the memory echoed faintly within my mind.

"Uhm, remember Alec I only reached the rank of Lieutenant, I never actually took command of an Army Company in my career," I corrected as casually as I could manage, silently testing to see if the Guardian truly possessed all of my memories. But to my surprise, and extreme relief, Alec only shrugged with a slightly sheepish look on his face.  
"Oh, well my mistake. I just said Captain because you're leading this rag-tag group of ours. I don't think I mentioned earlier that I only have the general memories from your life; I can't look into the more personal or repressed ones like promotions or traumatic events. So even if you did make Captain, I wouldn't know unless you told me."

"Well I'm telling you now, I_ didn't_. I only made lieutenant and stayed a lieutenant until I found the ring and ended up here," I lied in a normal friendly voice as I held up my ring hand, convincing the Guardian that my story was genuine.

'_If he can't see into my repressed memories, then he doesn't know what happened…'_ I thought to myself, causing another needle of emotional pain to stab at me as the images of my last trip through Afghanistan began to materialize. Forcing those thoughts back down into the dark pit of my mind that I had locked them in for the last two and a half months, I forced a broad smile and clapped Alec on the shoulder.

"Come on, our job here is done and we've got a ship waiting for us. Lets get the hell off this station!" I announced before standing up and vaulting over the container we were hiding beside.

"Right behind you boss!" Alec said as we both began running down toward the main platform stretch, branching off from the pier we were on and quickly moving over toward the _Corsica_ as stealthily as possible.

"When we get onboard, how long do you bet it'll take me to Mind Mend with the ship?" I asked humourously to either of my comrades as we began passing the last pier right beside the Corvette's.  
"Judging from the last time you flew a vehicle, maybe _I_ should…" Alec began saying before we both stopped abruptly, the ring catching our attention as it lit up it's usual bright silver, the same radiant silver it would give off whenever it was summoning something!

Drawing and activating my Phalanx while Alec pulled out the Predator's Combi-Stick, we quickly caught sight of a blinding silver glare coming from behind a large stack of shipping crates, showing us that whatever the ring was bringing into this universe would be coming from that direction. After a brief period the silver light vanished without a sound, bringing no fictional characters or movie monsters out to suddenly attack us. This lack of anything made Alec and I look over at each other with stunning frowns.

Had the ring just malfunctioned, or was it trying to fool us into letting our guard down?

"What do you suppose that was all about?" Alec asked as we began taking tentative steps closer to the area. I had just opened my mouth to reply when all of a sudden several heavy bootfalls came running nearby, followed by a harsh Turian voice coming out from behind the crates.

"Hey you! Hold it right, AHGG!" the voice suddenly yelled in pain after barking an order to some unseen person. The sounds of fists striking blows against armour and flesh began permeating the air afterward, followed by more yells and gasps from the Turian before he seemed to be brutally slammed against the opposite side of the crate stack.

"Someone's being attacked," I said to Alec urgently, both the Guardian and I now running over to the source of the struggle. We only managed to come within a few feet of the stack before a badly beaten Turian marine was thrown out into view in front of us, landing sprayed out on his stomach with a deep groan of agony before losing consciousness and lying still. Before either of us could approach the marine to see if he was alright, his attacker stepped out into the open.

It was a Human man, and an intimidating one at that. Although he was only an inch or so taller than Alec and I, he was broad-shouldered and big, _very_ big. Rigorously trained muscles covered every ounce of his enormous figure, his massively developed arms being large enough to probably span a greater width than that of a normal man's head. The same could be said for the rest of his torso, particularly his pectoral, abdominal, and neck muscles. He wasn't freakishly large like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone had been at the peek of their bodybuilding careers, but if compared to them he would have come close. He had casually trimmed black hair, with thick black eyebrows and a visible Five-O'clock Shadow going across his strong jaw. On his person the man was wearing military cargo-pants and combat boots, coloured in a complementing array of browns and beiges used for desert camouflage patterns. Wearing a half open tight-fitting camo-dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up just under his elbows over top of a black T-Shirt, the man had a wide selection of pockets and pouches both on his shirt and the utility belt wrapped around his waist. On this belt was also an assortment of weapons, including two fragmentation grenades, a large sheathed combat knife, and a thick strap connected to an empty holster that was meant for holding a 9mm pistol wrapped around the thigh of his left leg. In the man's hand, both of which were encased in fingerless black leather combat gloves, was an activated Kessler pistol that he had most likely just wrestled from the Turian marine.

Out of all this however, the thing that caught our attention right away was the patch sowed onto the left shoulder of his camo-shirt amongst several others, a miniature flag coloured in blazing red and white. It was the flag of my homeland, the patch given to all those in service to the Armed Forces of Canada.

My eyes were wide with sheer stupefying horror, my face draining of all colour, and my skin going cold as I gazed at this man, as if I were quite literally seeing a ghost.  
"No…" I uttered in disbelief, barely above a whisper. It couldn't be…it couldn't possible be him.

_'Axel, he's got Luc! Tell Geordi to take the shot, my brother is down there!'_  
I was barely breathing as the echo of his words screamed in my ears over and over again, even as this specter from the past raised his hand holding the pistol and trained it down on the prone Turian's back.

"Thanks for the gun…" he said emotionlessly, his deep voice betraying an almost unnoticeable French-Canadian accent, as his index finger began squeezing the trigger.

Within the blink of an eye a loud crack sliced through the air. This was followed by a sharp pinging sound as a glowing red thermal round sliced into the side of the man's stolen Kessler, sending it violently flipping through the air out of his hand. I blinked in surprise, requiring an extra second to realize that _I_ was now pointing my smoking Phalanx out in front of myself, having just automatically aimed and fired the recent shot that had saved the marine's life.

In a flash the man sharply spun around to face me, his right hand dropping to the combat knife on his belt. But after a moment of carefully studying my face with squinting brown eyes, his features relaxed and a small familiar smirk formed on his face.

"You…" I stated, still too stunned and horrified for words.

"Axel…" he replied softly in recognition, a recognition that was laced with barely concealed malice.

I only leveled a deathly scowl at him in return, keeping the Phalanx aimed directly at his forehead. Right beside me Alec had extended the ends of the Combi-Stick and was now twirling the spear around his body in a dramatic show of combat readiness.

"Alright Mr. Soldier-Who-Eats-Steroids-For-Breakfast, what universe are you from?" the Guardian asked in a defiant action-movie voice after moving the weapon until it was placed diagonally behind his back and stepping into an ancient fighting stance.

My steel cold hatred of the man in front of us was now etching onto my face, the man whom I had grown up with since childhood, the one whom I had called friend and brother for more than half of my entire life, and it spilled easily into my voice as I answered Alec's question with a single short word.

"Ours."

* * *

"All nearby agents and marines report they heard a single shot fired from this location. Hover cars are setting down and our remaining forces are moving in as we speak," the driver of Bailey and Chellick's patrol car reported as he carefully glided the vehicle over the Docks.

"We're going back across this terrain with barely a tenth of the force we had last time. This had better work or we might as well kiss our careers goodbye," Chellick said back to Bailey as both lieutenants fervently looked out the side windows of the car for any sign of Axel.

"Hopefully we won't need to…LOOK! There he is!" Bailey began before suddenly announcing his find as he jabbed a finger at the windshield, pointing to an area near several deserted piers, only one of which was harbouring a small Alliance Corvette. Just a few feet off from this ship's pier were four miniature people, three of which were Human while the fourth appeared to be an unconscious Turian marine.

"Who's that third man?" Chellick asked out loud as he brought up his omni-tool and activated a small screen, allowing he, Bailey, and the driver to lean over and get a closer view of the three individuals.

It was Axel and Alec alright, strangely though they appeared to be locked in a tense standoff with the newest addition, one who appeared to be a very large man dressed in an older style of military field-gear.

"We can see them just fine, but we still can't hear anything they're saying," Bailey remarked on the lack of sound coming from footage. The driver brought the car into a dead hover before pointing to the screen with his free hand.

"That unconscious marine probably has an omni-tool on him somewhere. If you scan the immediate area with your own you can probably pick up is transponder signal, after that use your officer by-pass codes to activate it and its recording application to hear what's being said."

Both Chellick and Bailey looked at the driver with cocked brows, clearly stunned but impressed that the nameless man had provided his supposed _superior _officers with a plausible alternative. Quickly typing in the needed combination of buttons, everyone began keenly listening to the audible exchange going on between the criminals and the unknown soldier as the recording device activated.

* * *

Down on the platform, none of us noticed the faint glow of the Turian's omni-tool as it sprang to life around the sleeping man's arm all on its own.

'_It brought him back. It leeched off my most painful memories and brought this bastard back from the dead!'_ I thought with a spike of masked anger as I briefly glanced down to my right hand, feeling a new level of displeasure for the small silver band that had so utterly turned my life upside down.

"Uhhhhhhhh…Axel. I'm drawing a _huge_ blank on this one. Who exactly is this guy?" Alec asked over to me while still keeping his gaze on the man in front of us, his cocky demeanor now dropping into one of worried seriousness. I gave a small pitiful smirk at that.

'_At least Alec wasn't lying about not being able to look into my repressed memories,'_ I thought, stiffening slightly as the image of a beautiful woman's smiling face flashed in front of my eyes before disappearing.

"Second-Lieutenant Jarrod François, of the Canadian Royal 22e Régiment, Light Infantry 3rd Battalion out of Valcartier, Quebec. Graduated with honours, participated in multiple tours-of-duty in the Afghan theatre…" I began listing off, hiding any sign of the sudden memory flash having affected me. Jarrod had remained in a combat ready pose before us, his hand still resting on the hilt of his knife. However he did deliberately cock one of his eyebrows up high in mock impressment as I named off the sightings from his military record.

"…Shot and killed by friendly-fire while in the Kandahar Province on September 25, 2010, due to a violent psychological breakdown that turned him against his own unit and endangered the lives of many surrounding civilians," I finished in a more forceful voice, taking some small satisfaction as that last note of information caused my former friend to drop his eyebrow and subtly sneer at me in contempt.

"Wow. You recite that as if it were poetry," Jarrod stated in a condescending tone.  
"I've burned that final part into my mind every night since I last saw you alive," I fired back in the same manner.

"Oh really? Taking pride in your handy work?"

"Handy work?" Alec asked out loud in confusion as he looked between the two of us. Flicking my thumb against a small button on my pistol, I activated and shone out the Phalanx's piercing blue laser-sight, targeting my resurrected enemy's chest.

"No, I would never take pride in what I had to do that day. But I'll gladly do it again and trade the 9mm I shot into your forehead for a superheated thermal round," I retorted viciously, earning another cocked eyebrow from Jarrod as his eyes briefly looked up toward his head, the memory of his sudden violent death still fresh in his mind. Alec's eyes widened in bewilderment as he turned toward me with a cautioning hand gesture.

"Whoa whoa! Lets not go overboard here!" he began.  
"Shut up. Who are you anyway, his long lost twin brother?" Jarrod interrupted while turning his attention to Alec. The Guardian turned and narrowed his eyes.  
"I'm his _teacher_ for your information."

"You know Axel, I was actually just there a few moments ago. I can still clearly remember the sound of your pistol going off, remember the brief pain as the bullet split through my skull, I can even remember the darkness of oblivion as my life was snuffed out…" Jarrod began back to me, ignoring Alec's remark while tenderly rubbing the center of his forehead where my round had passed through all those weeks ago. Alec was frowning in even further bewilderment as he listened to our exchange.

"Wait, Axel, are you both saying that _you_ were the friendly fire that killed this man?" he asked me tentatively.

"And then I saw a light, a blinding silver glare that obscured my darkened vision. At first I thought it was God, taking me to be with my lost family. But then all of a sudden I felt life flowing through me again; the silver dissipated and I found myself here in this strange place…reunited with _you_," Jarrod finished telling his after-death experience before slowly pointing a menacing finger at me. I kept my scowl as I glanced over to Alec.

"On my last tour-of-duty, shortly after our Company had managed to liberate an Afghan village that was being used as an outpost by the Taliban, Jarrod went insane. He gunned down an unarmed prisoner in a fit of rage and then began firing on the rest of us, while at the same time deciding to try and take his own life along with the lives of any innocent villagers around him," I explained, my tone becoming more angry and thick with hatred as I listed off his betrayals. Jarrod gave a low growl at this.

"You can actually call them innocent? After everything we went through during that fight? They were hiding enemy insurgents in their homes, their basements, their very walls! And when they broke out from those homes and started ambushing us, what did those villagers do? NOTHING! Even when the Taliban started turning their guns on them and began using the closest ones as shields, killing them off one by one in order to make us retreat to keep the rest alive. They weren't innocent; no one was innocent in that!" Alec stood in stunned silence after witnessing Jarrod's furious outburst, which was in stark contrast to the cool quiet demeanor he had been displaying this entire time.

"No wonder I don't have any of these memories…" Alec stated quietly, glancing over at me in silent shock. But I didn't notice this; my own cool was quickly shattering as my bubbling rage began surfacing to the boiling point, making my eyes widen and my scowl deepen even further.

"Those insurgents were holding those villagers' families hostage, threatening them with promises of rape, torture, and murder if they didn't comply with their demands! What were they suppose to do?!" I shouted furiously at him, my finger tensing dangerously close to squeezing the Phalanx's trigger.

"They could have fought back. They knew they were going to die, so they could have at least died fighting! It would have saved us the horror of having to see them get senselessly slaughtered in their own streets, or having to see our men dying around us for a cause they knew was going to be lost in the end anyway!" Jarrod spat back, breathing heavily as his own burning fury made several blood veins bulge noticeably along his neck.

"So you thought the best way to pay them back afterward was to try blowing up yourself and over a hundred other people with a _hand-grenade_?!" I viciously posed to him, my eyes snapping to the empty space next to the two other frag-grenades on his Army belt. Suddenly an angry grin spread across Jarrod's face, followed by him throwing back his head and letting out a maniacal but sad and pained laugh.  
"It must really eat away at you Axel, to know that all of this could have been avoided if you had just listened to me in the first place! If you had only ordered Geordi to take the shot sooner, Luc would still be alive! Its _your_ fault he's dead, and _your_ fault why I ended up this way!" Jarrod roared, his face livid with hatred and rage, but his deep brown eyes beginning to tear up and glass over with sorrow at the memory of his brother's demise.

"I tried to save Luc, Jarrod. Have you forgotten that? I was at your side as we near single-handedly stormed an entire enemy camp together to rescue him." Jarrod only chuckled again as I said this, in that same mad but pained manner.  
"For all the good it did. Luc was still gunned down like a chained animal and Captain Cormier was killed in the firefight soon after," he began before letting a sardonic hateful smirk creep onto his face.

"That must have hurt a lot for you. The great Axel Sorenson; the hard working, educated, natural-born leader and Cormier's unofficial protégé; after his death instead of handing the reins of command to you, the brass simply passed you over for your pretty…" suddenly Jarrod cut off in mid-speech as he gave a loud gasp of pain and staggered/jerked sideways, barely being heard over the piercing crack of my Phalanx after having just fired a second round. The resurrected lieutenant clamped a hand onto his left ear, the thermal round having skinned past and created a bloody gash across its tip!

My breathing was ragged as I kept the smoking barrel leveled on him, my eyes wide and unfocused. My vision became clouded; I was no longer standing on the Docks in the middle of the Mass Effect universe, but in a richly decorated room lit by deep orange lights. Everything was slightly blurred, as if I were viewing it through a dream. Just up ahead of me was a wide gridded window, looking out on a black night sky partially lit up by the glowing lights of a beautiful city. Small white snowflakes gently fell through the air outside the window, joining the sea of white that blanketed the streets and yards that spanned out in front of the tall building I was in. However, the window wasn't the main focus of my attention, it was what was standing in front of it. Looking out ahead with her back turned to me, was a slim young woman with long wavy brown hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, wearing a flowing ankle length spaghetti-strap scarlet dress that hugged nicely to her body. The back of the dress was slit open down to the lower part of her torso, revealing a nice portion of her tanned backside. After taking a moment to admire her, I began crossing over toward the window. She made no move to indicate that she knew I was there, but she did give a small melodious giggle as I came up behind and gently lay a hand on the back of her exposed neck and shoulder line, rubbing her smooth skin affectionately.

"_So, how do I look?"_ she asked in a soft but clear voice that made my heart melt, slowly turning around to face me with a playfully cocked eyebrow. Her face was just as beautiful as her body, not glamourously so like a model, but more like that of the naturally pretty outdoorsy girl you grew up and did daring things with as a kid. She had one or two freckles here and there but mostly her skin was clear of any noticeable blemishes, save for a small scar going across the side of her right cheek. Hooking a hand around the small of her back and easily pulling her closer to me, I gave a warm smile before reaching up and cupping her said cheek, gently stroking the scar with my thumb. This got an affectionate smile from her in return as she placed her hands on my sides and pulled me closer to her.

For a moment we just stayed like that, me holding onto her and looking deep into her beautiful emerald green eyes, the very eyes that had drawn me to her when we had first met.

"_I think every guy at the party is going to be focusing on you rather then their dates,"_ I answered finally, my smile widening as my words caused a slight blush to rise up across her cheeks. Her eyelids became heavy as she looked down at my lips, her slim but muscular arms slowly rising up and wrapping around the back of my neck, pulling me even closer until our noses were nearly touching.

"_Merry Christmas Axel,"_ she whispered lovingly before we both closed our eyes and slowly pressed our lips together, immediately pushing further into a deep kiss.

I gasped with a start, my eyes blinking wildly as the memory faded from view, bringing me back to the Military Docks and the real world. (Well, as real as you can get inside the Mass Effect universe.)

'_It was just a memory…only a memory,'_ I thought with a cold shudder, looking back up ahead of myself to see my arm was still pointing the Phalanx at a cringing ear holding Jarrod. The images had barely lasted a second in real time, but they had felt like minutes. Scowling with rage as I remembered what had triggered my emotional flashback, I straightened my gun arm and trained the pistol's laser-sight directly on Jarrod's head.

"You will never. Mention. _Her._ Again," I ordered to him in a deadly soft voice, filling it with all the anger, malice, and evil intent a Human being could possible put into words.

On my hand I could see and feel the ring beginning to shine a bright red, my anger and vicious thoughts activating the _Rage_ directly. This time however I didn't care if it took control of me; Jarrod more than deserved whatever horror it could conjure for him. But suddenly, as the familiar red tinge began to slowly creep into my vision, it was suddenly dispelled as a black-gloved hand snapped into view from the side, firmly but non-threateningly locking around my extended wrist.

"Axel. Don't do it, not like this," Alec's voice implored soothingly, causing me to look over at him. For a moment I wanted to shove him off, to explain to him everything that had happened, to use the ring's power to fry Jarrod to a crisp for all the pain he had caused me. But as I thought those things, I suddenly felt a deep pang of guilt run through me, the smiling face of the woman from my memories briefly appearing in between the Guardian and I like a dying wisp of smoke. I wedged my eyes shut, slightly cringing with remorse as an old emotional wound ached within me.

I stayed that way for another moment before slowly nodding my head, opening my eyes and nodding again in sad agreement to Alec without saying a word. He gave his own nod before releasing my wrist, the red light from the ring fading away as the _Rage_ dispersed before it could truly take over.

"Well, I guess that hit a nerve. What happened Axel? Did things not go so well between you and your sweetheart after my dramatic death?" Jarrod asked in that same sardonic tone after steadying himself and pulling his hand away from his slightly bloodied ear. My scowl returned, but this time fueled by a sense of loss and pain rather than hatred.

"You'll never know how much your little stunt cost me in the end," I hissed slowly at him, my own eyes beginning to glisten slightly as the memories continued to strike at the outer edges of my mind.

Seeing this physical response caused Jarrod to blink and slowly drop his smirking expression, half replacing it with a slight frown, as if he were confused by my reaction.

Quickly however his face hardened as he ripped his combat knife out of its sheath, holding it upside down from the hilt in a defensive form.  
"Since we're pretty much back to where we left off, why don't we just settle this once and for all like we should have back in that village. Like men," he said with finality, raising the knife across his chest and bending his legs a bit in a melee stance. I could only shake my head with a scoff and gesture to our surroundings with my other hand.

"In case you hadn't noticed Jarrod, we're not on Earth anymore. This is the Mass Effect universe, the universe that I've been brought to to complete a great quest and to help save from two besieging forces that are getting ready to conquer it. Which means I've got bigger problems to deal with than _you_, so I think I'll just skip this little dance and put you back in the ground the same way I did two months ago." Jarrod's eyes lit up with a blood-crazed rage as I said this.  
"You'll face me one way or another! You backstabbing COWARD!" he shouted before charging at me like a rabid animal, raising the knife high above his head.

I was about to adjust the aim of the Phalanx and simply blow a hole through Jarrod's head for the second time in my life, when all of a sudden the ring once again lit up bright silver!

In the next second a giant portal opened up right beside the charging lieutenant, and before we could do anything, a massive black and brown-scaled Pterodactyl swooped out of it directly toward him!

Jarrod yelled as the enormous flying dinosaur screeched in surprise and flapped its leathery wings, clumsily arcing upward into the air and accidentally slamming the bottom portion of its body straight into Jarrod's chest. This only made things worse, for the sharp talons on the ends of the Pterodactyl's two back claws slashed and unintentionally hooked into the folds of his camo-shirt, causing the flying creature to inadvertently pick him up into the air along with it. I was struck frozen with shock, watching the dinosaur soar out over the Docks' sudden drop off, struggling to remain airborne under Jarrod's heavy weight as he fought to free himself, stabbing the blade of his combat knife repeatedly into the Pterodactyl's soft underbelly.

"KNIGHTS!" Alec suddenly warned from beside me. Spinning around in alarm, I reared back in surprise when I saw that he wasn't joking. Charging toward us from a second glowing silver portal that had just opened up, were two Knights-at-Arms dressed in full suits of shining metal armour, both of them with humongous Broadswords raised above their helmeted heads.

"Die accursed knaves!" one of them shouted in a thick British accent as they brought their swords down on us. With instant reflexes, Alec jumped in front of me and snapped the Predator Combi-Stick horizontally overtop of himself, catching both blades within its center. Thanks to whatever material the spear was made out of, it effectively blocked the attack with a thick metallic clang. However the weight of the combined Broadswords and the strength with which the huge knights had swung them was more than enough to send Alec stumbling backward, both of us yelling out as he smashed into me and sent us toppling to the ground!

* * *

"All forces report they're being engaged by some kind of hostile creatures! Each is giving a conflicting report, some say dinosaurs, others say monsters, and some say something else!" the driver said quickly, holding onto his barking earpiece as flashes of light from discharging weapons began to light up the area of the Docks below the patrol car, adding to the glare of the silver portals that were momentarily popping up all over the place.

"INCOMING!" Chellick shouted with a point of his talon to the windshield. Barely a second after he said that, a huge flying reptile coloured in beautiful patterns of green and blue smacked into the side of the car!

Plastering itself across the windshield as it struggled to dig the sharp claws on its wings and feet into the patrol car's hull, the creature looked in on the three occupants with a large yellow eye, causing them to yell in fear from the dangerous rocking and thrashing movements it was putting the car through. After a moment of futile attempts, the reptile slid off the vehicle's front hood with a hissing cry, plummeting through the air for a moment before spreading its wings and swooping low over the escalating battle spanning across the docking platforms.  
"There's more of them!" Bailey stated suddenly, the others seeing what he was talking about immediately.

All around them, materializing high in mid air briefly, were more glowing silver portals!

Several stayed open long enough to allow more of those strange reptiles to fly through, others gave way to more Pterodactyls and other flying dinosaurs, while one or two had gigantic birds of some kind that neither Bailey or Chellick had ever seen before.

"We need immediate air-support, reinforcements, get our damn reserve units down here!" the driver shouted to Chellick as he frantically manipulated the controls, lurching the car into a series of twists and turns in order to avoid the dozens of winged beasts hissing or screeching all around them.

"Looks like we may have some help in that regard, they're tearing each other apart," Bailey commented to his comrades, looking out through all of the car's windows as Chellick sent out an emergency call for any nearby gunships. Sure enough, with the car rocketing out of the danger-zone to safety, the three began noticing the massive aerial battle that had started up between the different kinds of creatures. All around them, Pterodactyls were dive-bombing and latching on to the strange brightly coloured flying reptiles, biting and snapping with their toothy jaws, while the reptiles themselves began ganging up on the dinosaurs in groups of three or four, clawing at them savagely with their talons and forcing the larger predators into crash landings all across the platform.

* * *

I was lying on my back, my eyes wide and flitting back and forth as I looked upward from the Dock's platform. All around us the sounds of assault rifles and the shouting of combat could be heard, nearly drowned out by the resounding shrieks and hisses coming from the bloody battle that had just begun overhead.

'_Even after everything we've seen, this is weird!'_ I thought with a glance to the now non-glowing ring as I quickly reached up and latched on to the railing spanning across the edge of the platform's drop-off, pulling myself up to my feet. Keeping my Phalanx in hand, I couldn't help but be struck by a sense of half fear half awe from watching the deadly aerial battle going on between the additional Pterodactyls the ring had summoned, and the groups of smaller multi-coloured Ikran, the flying bird-like reptiles from James Cameron's _Avatar_!

Upon seeing the new Pterodactyls, I sharply spun around with a new sense of apprehension, my eyes frantically searching across the wide-open space of the drop-off. Quickly I found the first Pterodactyl flying several hundred feet out from us, still awkwardly fighting to keep its wings flapping while at the same time trying to release its thrashing burden. I could barely see Jarrod properly from this distance, but I could tell he was still furiously stabbing his knife into the dinosaur's body, covering himself in blood as he ripped into its chest.

"JARROD!" I called out to him, hoping to make him pause in his struggling for a moment. But it didn't work, he only continued to fight harder, grabbing onto one of the creature's wings and pulling himself up closer to its head, swiping his arm and burying his blade deep in its neck. The Pterodactyl gave a dying scream of pain, finally succumbing to its wounds and ceasing in its desperate flapping. As its body began careering down through the air, Jarrod quickly ripped himself free of its claws and climbed up onto its back, sheathing his knife and grabbing both of its wings. The body started to slightly right itself on the air currents as Jarrod tried manipulating the wings in an attempt to turn the carcass into a makeshift glider; but it was too heavy after having become a dead weight and the wings were too thick. Despite his best efforts, I soon found myself watching my former friend plummeting uncontrollably down toward the compacted streets and dark building complexes that spanned out far below us.

"This isn't the end Axel! I came back from the dead once, I can do it again! Luc will be avenged! I _will_ have my revenge!"

Jarrod's final words boomed out defiantly across the distance between us, he and the dead dinosaur continuing to fall until they disappeared within the dark folds of the buildings, followed by a sickening metallic crash that echoed out across the entire expanse.

I gave a shuddering breath, feeling oddly sick inside at having just seen my best friend die for a second time, this being more violent than the last. But then the hatred I had developed for him came back in a flash, the memories of his betrayal on our friendship, the rest of our unit, and our very country rushing to my mind all at once.

"Good riddance," I uttered out spitefully, the image of two sad emerald green eyes appearing before me just like the others.

"I could use some help over here!" Alec's voice barked over from behind me, snapping me out of my dark thoughts and back to the situation going on around us. Wheeling around, I could see the Guardian cringing in effort down on one knee, holding the Combi-Stick out before himself locked in a stalemate with the Broadswords of the two knights standing over him. However that stalemate was quickly breaking, the combined power of the two armour-clad men forcing Alec back, making him bare his teeth and strain every last ounce of effort he had to keep them at bay. Quickly snapping up my Phalanx and gripping it with both hands, I fired several shots into the chest of the nearest knight, the rounds sinking through his armour like a hot knife cutting through butter. As that man dropped dead without a sound, the second knight turned to me and staggered back in shock, his eyes wide through the slit visor of his helmet as he eyed my smoking pistol.

"What devilry ist that…" he began before the length of the Combi-Stick's shaft suddenly came up and swiped him across the face. Standing back up to his full height, Alec began delivering a brief series of blows to the knight's armoured body, ending with him harshly sweeping the man's legs out from under him. With a metallic crash that sounded like a kitchen falling apart, the knight landed painfully on his back before beginning to helplessly move his limbs, the tremendous weight of the suit keeping him pinned to the ground like a turtle that had just fallen on its back. Breathing heavily as he compacted the spear and slid it under his belt behind his back, Alec turned to me with a concerned look.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Casting a glance over my shoulder to the drop-off and the area where Jarrod had vanished, I paused for a moment before nodding with a steeled expression on my face.  
"I'll be fine, come on…" I began saying when suddenly a long steel-headed arrow struck against my arm, the suit's hardened scale plating only just managing to ricochet it away!

I yelled out and jerked to the side as the projectile hit me, both Alec and I looking over in the direction it'd come from.  
"HOYAHH!" an angry roar came out of the seven individuals grouped not far away from us on top of another crate stack. Each was dressed in familiar red or black scaled armour plates, with curved branching helmets and dark masks resembling either lion's or dragon's mouths covering the bottom portion of their faces. Two of them were aiming drawn Yumi bows at us, while the rest held razor sharp katanas high near their heads.

"Samurai!" Alec stated in apprehension, his hand stealthily reaching behind his back to pull out the Combi-Stick again.

"Aoww…not again!" I complained in a tired voice, having already had my fill of samurai since my brief trip through Feudal Japan not that long ago. Both Alec and I tensed in readiness, waiting for the samurai to either jump down and charge or unleash their arrows at us. But they never got the chance, for just as they were about to make their move, a tremendous squawking cry pierced through the air behind us.

"_We have a bogie incoming!"_ Haxon's voice suddenly warned, having stayed silent throughout the entire reunion.

Both the samurai and we turned toward the direction the screech had come from, all of us widening our eyes and dropping our jaws as an enormous bird-like monster swooped down low to the platform, dive-bombing directly toward us!

The bird looked like a cross between a short mutant Ostridge and a Golden Eagle. Its leathery neck and legs were longish and gangly, while its beak was pronounced and curved along with its wickedly sharp talons. Its entire torso was covered in black and brownish golden feathers, extending out and blending in with the larger dark feathers that made up its massive 40-foot wingspan!

The bird's menacing brown eyes flashed as it opened its beak and screamed again, bowing its head low in readiness to snatch one of us up from the platform.

"Hit the deck!" Alec shouted as he grabbed my arm and forced us both into a drop to the ground. As we were in mid fall, I chose this last second opportunity to raise my Phalanx and fire off a blind wild shot. Luckily this shot succeeded in flying up and striking the bird-monster in the side of its belly as it blew by overtop of us. The pain from the new wound caused it to screech in pain and instinctively rear its head back, while at the same time lose control of its flight path and crash full-on into the stack of crates the seven samurai (an awesome movie by the way!) were standing on before they had a chance to fully jump out of the way!

With an angered screech, the great bird rolled over onto its back covered in debris from the destroyed containers, frantically kicking its legs and wildly trying to flap its wings. The samurai had quickly recovered, several of them screaming out war cries as they raised their katanas high above their helmets and charged at the struggling monster. But the bird was more than ready for a fight, giving another screech as it thrashed its long claws out at its attackers, opening its giant beak and catching one of the swordsmen around the waist.

"Do you see that?!" Alec shouted with a jab of his finger to the giant monster as we quickly stood up. I shot him a look before casting a deliberate glance all around the area, both at the skyward battle happening between the Pterodactyls and Ikran, as well as whatever we could see of the fight going on with the grounded beings the ring had brought to confront the Military Dock's marines.

"How could I miss any of this?" I asked casually with a wave of my gun toward the encircling chaos.

"No Axel, that's a Thunderbird, and it's pissed off! We need to get out of here now!" Alec shouted before both of us suddenly ducked our heads as the Thunderbird threw the thrashing man it had been holding in its jaws, sending him screaming through the air over the edge of the drop-off.

"What an excellent idea. MOVE!" I barked sarcastically before we both began sprinting onto the _Corsica_'s docking pier, narrowly avoiding the monster-bird's thrashing limbs as it continued fighting off the remaining samurai. Running as fast as we could, we noticed up ahead the two bumbling Alliance marines stationed by the ship's docking corridor, both of them keeping the barrels of their assault rifles trained on the battle behind us.

"See, I wasn't crazy! I TOLD YOU I WASN'T CRAZY!" the first marine shouted over the roaring and gunfire, viciously jabbing a finger against his partner's shoulder.

"Thanks for keeping the ship safe boys! Wish us luck on the quest!" I called to the still oblivious duo as we ran right in between them. Immediately another samurai was thrown down the pier from the struggling Thunderbird, causing the two marines to yell and dive out of the way as the warrior crashed into several shipping crates.

"Cause we're gonna need it!" Alec threw back over his shoulder as he and I began running down the corridor toward the _Corsica_'s sealed outer airlock.

* * *

Amazingly the battle raging across the Docks was rapidly swinging in C-Sec's and their marine allies' favour. Mantis gunships were beginning to sweep through the air, unleashing volleys of thermal rounds that struck down both the Pterodactyls and the Ikran in droves. The same was happening on the ground, with the marines and joining agents forming up into defensive divisions and cutting down any creature or person that charged at them. It was truly a sight to behold, with more katana wielding samurai, knife throwing Cossack soldiers, small feathered Velociraptors, and many other strange beings all either killing each other or trying unsuccessfully to gang up on the rifle firing security forces.

"All enemy creatures are being repelled as we speak. So far no deaths from any of our units have been reported. Despite several injuries after the initial attack I'd say we're winning sirs," the driver said with relief over to Bailey and Chellick, all three of them sitting in their floating hover car and watching the battle from a safe distance.

"But in that time we lost sight of our fugitives," Chellick said to his fellow passengers while leaning over the dashboard to look through the windshield. Everything was quiet for a moment before the driver suddenly spoke up again.

"I think I just found them."  
"Where?" Bailey and Chellick asked at the same time, immediately looking at him.  
"There!" he answered, pointing over to an Alliance Corvette far across from them, the very one the three had seen the blonde duo standing near before this had all begun. As he did this, several lights and systems visible along the ship's outer hull began lighting up, and a deep humming sound soon began reverberating from its rear propulsion outlets as its engines began activating.

"Are they insane? They're still attached to the Docks!" Chellick stated after seeing that the magnetic docking clamps firmly latched to the ship had not yet disengaged.

"We've tried underestimating these two before and it's gotten us nothing but trouble. Whatever their plan is, I'll bet they've got some kind of ace in the hole," Bailey said with narrowed eyes as more of the ship began to turn on.

"We need agents over there before they can escape."  
"No. They wouldn't get there in time to do any good. There's only one other way we can salvage this now," Bailey said grimly.  
"And what's that sir?" the driver asked over to the older lieutenant.  
"Get us to the Citadel Defense Headquarters! I expect to see you breaking records for fastest speed done by a patrol car!" Bailey ordered sternly. Giving a grin and an enthusiastic nod, the driver turned back to his controls.

"With pleasure."

As the officers' patrol car blasted away from the Military Docks, agents carrying riot-shields and tear gas launchers began steadily advancing forward across the Docks, supported by the defensive divisions of marines and agents. Firing their launchers intermittently, the platform soon started becoming submerged in gunfire and cloudy wisps of the noxious fumes, the sounds of the dying clash seeming to echo out across the entire Presidium.

* * *

Alec and I began breathing heavily as the outer door for the airlock shut behind us, staggering over and leaning against a wall to catch our breath after the adrenaline spiking escape we'd just endured.

"_Decontamination in progress…"_ the _Corsica_'s V.I. stated as the gentle white scanning field materialized and began creeping over toward us.

"Axel, this may not be the best time to ask, but…" Alec began, turning his head over to look at me.

"What did you mean when you told Jarrod that he would 'never mention _her_ again'? Who's _her_…" the Guardian started asking when suddenly he was cut off as I sharply snapped out a hand and grabbed onto the top of his samurai chest-plate, harshly pushing him back and pinning him against the airlock's bulkhead.

For a silent moment I stared hard into his startled eyes, my grip remaining tight before slowly relaxing.

"Alec…we've only known each other for a short while, but in that time I've come to consider you a friend. I hope that goes both ways," I said solemnly to him. Alec nodded, his face holding no signs of that cocking mocking attitude he usually had just masked beneath the surface.

"Of course."

"Then as your friend, and as your _Ring Bearer_…I'm asking you to drop this subject," I said, making my feelings on the matter very clear through my voice and expression.

"But…" he began.

"Please Alec, don't bring this up with me or any of our group in the future. Just forget you ever heard about it. It's not something I want to talk about," I implored to him, steeling my mind to keep from going into another memory relapse. For another moment we were silent before a small smile spread across Alec's face, his left hand reaching up and gently squeezing my shoulder.

"Okay," he said softly with a nod of understanding. A wave of relief washed over me as I smile in return and nodded back.

"Thank you. Now come on, we've got an escape to make!" I announced as the scanning field disappeared and the inner door to the _Corsica_'s interior slid open.

Both of us quickly moved out into the interior corridor, turning to the left and rushing up the three immediate steps into the ship's cockpit. Farther back in the conference table area, the horde of Replicators was busy scurrying about with their front pincers glowing hot, apparently using their advanced capabilities to improve various sections of the ship in some way.  
"Hey Yoda! Guess what? We're _finally_ leaving!" Alec joyously called back over his shoulder as several Replicators including Polly and Sparky came scrambling up into the cockpit along with us.  
"About time it is!" came Yoda's muffled reply from somewhere near the back of the ship. Tossing my Phalanx into the seat of the Captain's chair as I passed in front of it, I quickly came up to the crescent of control consoles and slid into one of the cushioned black swivel chairs set up before them.

"Please let this be easier than Irwin's hover car," I begged to myself as I pressed my palm against the main console and began Mind Mending with it. My muscles went rigid and the usual process of drawing the information out of the machine flashed before my eyes. Except this time I deliberately forced myself to stay connected to the ship for a little bit longer, soaking up every last detail that I possibly could from the _Corsica_'s inner makings so as to keep us from having a repeat of our escape from the Market District.

Just as the silver glow from the ring began fading away and my tense muscles started to relax after the transfer was complete, a tremendous crash sounded out followed by the entire ship shaking violently all around us!

"What in the Nine Worlds was that?!" Alec shouted after the shaking had subsided for a moment, holding on to the back of the Captain's chair before another rocking crash screamed out.

"Something's hitting us! We gotta get out of here before those things decide to come and tear us apart!" I shouted back while glancing around the cockpit, briefly holding on to the console to steady myself before letting my fingers go wild across its array of buttons. As the knowledge from the Mind Mending flowed through me and each system was activated, the darkened cockpit slightly lit up with a deep orange glow as all of the holo-control boards sprang to life. Imputing codes and turning holographic nobs on the many screens curving in front of me, small lights and other secondary systems throughout the ship began starting up. Another crash shook the _Corsica_, this time causing a metallic groaning sound to blend in with the deep humming noise beginning to vibrate throughout the decks as the ship's large twin-engines activated.

'_Its heating up faster and easier than it should,'_ I thought with a cocked eyebrow, reviewing the screens as well as through my newly attained knowledge after having noticed this odd anomaly. What exactly had the Replicators been up to while I was gone?

Another crash rocked the vessel, this time nearly throwing me out of my seat.

"What the hell is going on out there?" I asked out loud after pulling myself back to the consoles.  
"See for yourself!" Alec exclaimed, roughly stumbling into the back of my chair and pointing to the windshield ahead of us. Following his finger, I reared back in surprise at the sight of the monstrous brown eye and beaked facial profile peering in at us from the outside. After shifting its massive claws that it had dug into the side of the hull, the bloodied Thunderbird drew back its head before throwing it against the front end of the _Corsica_, causing the entire ship to experience another gut-wrenching quake!

"HEY! Do not go denting my ride!" I roared indignantly at the giant bird, jumping from the chair to my feet and jabbing a threatening finger at it through the cockpit's narrow crescenting windshield. The bird only looked at me square in the face before opening its enormous beak, giving us an unpleasant view of a long black tongue and several bloodied pieces of shredded samurai armour lodged farther back in its mouth, and letting out an earsplitting cry that caused both of us to wince. Using the flat of its forehead, the Thunderbird pulled back again and delivered a powerful head-butt that actually managed to dent several hull plates.

"I don't thank we can take much moe a this! Get this dang thang in gear boy!" Alec shouted down to me in a hysterical Southern Red-Neck accent. Sitting back down, I manipulated the flight-controls and put the _Corsica_'sfully active engines into reverse. Several thrusters on the front of the ship began firing bright jets of blue flame, the backlash from a few of them catching the Thunderbird in the face and temporarily blinding it, causing it to screech and pull away momentarily. But suddenly, as the ship slowly began backing up away from the main war torn platform-stretch of the Docks, a nasty metallic grating sound screamed out around us, along with a harsh jerk that brought us to an immediate stop despite the power still coming out from the ship's forward thrusters.

"What's happening?" Alec asked tensely in his normal voice, looking around us as the walls and hull began to shake uncontrollably from the thrusters automatically trying to push harder in order to break free of whatever was holding us.

"We're still attached to the pier! I can't disengage the docking arms without a lockout terminal, and the closest one I know of is in C-Sec Academy!" I reported over my frantic keystrokes, desperation creeping into my voice and movements as I kept trying to wrench the ship from its attached magnetic clamps.

"The Academy's halfway back down the Docks! There's no way we're going back into that warzone with _that_ thing on top of us!" Alec shouted with a point to the screeching Thunderbird still latched on to our front.

"Oy! Chicken Legs! If you don't get off my ship soon I'm gonna turn you into a giant Thanksgiving TURKEY!" the Guardian fired off angrily at the great animal, only getting a furious beak jab against the ship's nose in response that caused us to jerk downward briefly.

"Without a terminal there's no way to…" I began with a helpless gesture, seeing no hope in sight. Suddenly however, a pair of mechanical hisses came from the floor behind us. Spinning around, Alec and I looked at each other in confusion as we watched Polly and Sparky begin to climb up the bulkhead of the cockpit toward the ceiling, hissing back to their Replicator brothers while heating their front pincers to full power. As that happened, several of the Replicators began following them up, while others turned and scurried off toward the conference table area, screeching loudly to the rest of the horde. Soon a large portion of the insect army was climbing up the bulkheads, each clawing their way toward the ceiling with their pincers flaring. Before either of us could ask what was happening, Polly began burning through the ceiling, carefully melting his way into the material until he broke and climbed up through the _Corsica_'s hardened outer hull, his example quickly being followed by Sparky and the other spiders.

"Uhh…abandoning ship maybe?" Alec suggested after watching the ascending Replicators scurry out one by one through their newly made tunnels. Suddenly another groaning sound shook through the walls, but this time it wasn't coming from the ship. The floor beneath us jerked backwards, the Corvette's still active forward thrusters abruptly resuming in their success at pushing us away from the Docks. As we pulled farther and farther out, one of the pier's magnetic docking clamps passed by the side our windshield, completely broken in half with wisps of smoke rising up from its newly destroyed end. The Replicators had just burnt it off for us!

"No, they're breaking us free!" I stated with a wide grin of revelation as the new groaning sound increased in pitch, the force of the _Corsica_'s thrusters causing the final magnetic clamp to bend and warp from the strain of being pulled away as it tried keeping us latched to the Docks.

"Yeah but we still gotta deal with the soon-to-be KFC FAMLY MEAL! that's bashing the crap out of our vehicle!" Alec began saying to me before looking back through the windshield and shouting the insult at the Thunderbird as it slammed its forehead into the hull again.

"If it was just a bit farther down I could use the ship's main guns to blast it off of us!" I stated as more hull plates crunched underneath the impact. Suddenly the loud metallic movements of the Replicators began sounding out directly overtop of us, slightly muffled from being outside.  
"Looks like our friends have us covered on that one," Alec remarked with a grin as several dozen of the spiders began crawling into view across the surface of the outer windshield, with Polly and Sparky leading the charge. The Thunderbird squawked in anger at each of the approaching machines, pulling its head back in preparation to strike at them; but suddenly Polly hissed and jumped up toward it with his legs flared open. Latching on to the side of the creature's beak, my Replicator Parrot climbed up and began viciously clawing at its face with his sharp front legs, soon being joined by several of his brothers as they too jumped up to aid him. The Thunderbird gave an earth-shaking scream of pain as Polly and the other Replicators started clawing and scratching near its eyes, threatening to permanently blind it despite the desperate attempts it was making to throw the infernal machines from its head. That was when a tremendous cracking snap shot out from the side of the ship, and a smoking jagged piece of the final docking clamp flung wildly up in front of the windshield. The _Corsica_ suddenly lurched backwards again; its thrusters now pushing us out with 100% efficiency as the other Replicators still spread out across the hull broke the ship free. The Thunderbird gave a gurgling screeching death rattle as the flying metal debris stabbed into its chest and impaled through its ribcage, killing it almost instantly. With a final spreading of its huge wings, the mighty beast fell backwards off of the ship and plummeted down to the expanse of building complexes almost in slow motion, giving Polly, Sparky, and their backup enough time to jump from its head and land back on the windshield directly over top of us.

"Alright we're free, GUN IT!" Alec ordered to me, shaking my shoulder frantically as he noticed the fleet of Mantises still doing battle with the swarms of flying reptiles crisscrossing through the air inching closer and closer toward us.

"Thank you Polly! Now get back in here, we're shippin' out!" I called through the windshield with a wide grin as I began manipulating the controls. Polly looked down at me while the others began climbing back up toward the hull, briefly tapping the point of his red and silver leg on the top of his facial area in the imitation of a snap salute. As he and the rest of the spiders scurried back into the ship's interior through their makeshift exits, several of them stayed on the outside of the hull and disassembled their bodies into sheets of interconnecting blocks, molding themselves with the Corvette's hardened exterior and re-establishing its space/vacuum proof seal.

After quickly tuning the ship's controls, I made the _Corsica_ cut away from the Docks, roughly taxiing us into a left curve on its forward thrusters before shutting them off. For a short second we weightlessly glided backwards into the zero-gravity of space, passing out of the Presidium's atmosphere bubble until we had leveled ourselves parallel with the Dock's platforms. Then, after another series of button taps and turns of holographic nobs, the Corvette's aft thrusters lit up bright blue and began shooting the vessel away from the District, blasting us across space with a high-pitched humming/screeching _whoosh!_

* * *

Bailey and Chellick burst through the large blast doors of the Citadel Defense Headquarters, shoving their way through security guards, tech-specialists, and other officers on their way to the main control platform set up in the center of the room.

"What's the status of the situation at the Docks?" the Turian CO demanded from one of the people operating the ring of holographic consoles surrounding him. Before anyone could answer, the two C-Sec officers charged up onto the command platform, coming to a jerking stop slightly out of breath in front of the bewildered CO.  
"Have there been any unauthorized launches from the Military Docks recently?" Bailey asked him quickly. The CO frowned in stunned confusion and looked between the two.  
"Weren't you both down at the site of the conflict just a few minutes ago?"

"An Alliance Corvette commander! Did an Alliance Corvette launch from that area in the time it took us to get here?" Chellick interrupted with a cutting hand gesture.

"I haven't had time to worry about the comings and goings of Alliance equipment lieutenant, we _are_ facing a bit of a crisis at the moment," the CO answered tersely, sweeping his hand out to indicate the ordered chaos of moving bodies and background noise of reports and orders that were coming from the dozens of staff hustling about the chamber. However an Asari operator sitting at one of the consoles next to the two Turians suddenly raised her hand, keeping her eyes keenly locked on her screen as she gave her report.

"The early warning system detected an unauthorized launch from pier 1-39, an Alliance Corvette identified as the _SSV Corsica_ somehow managed to rip itself free from its docking arms."

"Where is this ship now?" the CO asked immediately after he, Chellick, and Bailey had moved up behind her.

"Our external cameras are getting a visual now. It's pulling away from the Presidium and increasing its speed to over 1000 kilometers an hour," she reported after imputing a command into her keyboard.

"Onscreen," the CO ordered before he and the two lieutenants turned to a massive flat screen spanning across the far wall of the Headquarters. After a moment the screen suddenly lit up with a dim blue colour, the readings and technical displays scrolling up the sides showing that the image was being seen through the lens of a security camera. The actual image itself showed a portion of the Citadel Arms, along with the wide negative space of the Serpent Nebula in between them. Cutting across the massive cloudy expanse within the five Arms was a small blue and white blur no bigger than a marble.

"Magnify that image," boomed a very deep and gravely Turian voice from the far back of the Headquarters. Bailey and Chellick both tensed and cast each other a wide-eyed look before slowly turning around, inwardly cringing in preparation for what they would see.

As they feared, standing within the open entrance with Ciatra F'Loson at his side, was their boss. Executor Venarl Pallin himself.

(Now shit just got real.)

"Would someone please explain to me what's going on?" the CO asked with a confused jerk of his head between the two lieutenants and the Executor. Without a word Pallin and F'Loson marched up onto the platform, the liaison silently taking her place next to Bailey and Chellick while Pallin cast a deliberate glance toward them.  
"I'll deal with you three later," he all but growled under his breath before turning his attention to the massive screen, which was now showing an enhanced image of the _Corsica_ flying through space.

"That ship is stolen property of the System's Alliance, and is carrying the criminal Axel and his accomplices. Begin locking onto it with the station's main forward batteries," Pallin ordered to the platform's console operators. Chellick quickly stepped forward with a raised hand, his eyes flicking nervously between the Executor and the main screen.  
"Sir, we don't need to fire on them yet, this situation can still be salvaged. We have multiple star-fighter units on standby, if they are…" the lieutenant began trying to explain before he was suddenly interrupted by the CO.

"Excuse me, but this is _my_ Headquarters and _I_ will decide what is to be done with its resources," he stated to both men firmly. Pallin merely leaned forward and extended his arm across the Asari operator's shoulder, imputing his own command into her console. The image on screen suddenly changed, pulling away from the stolen Corvette and focusing on an area not too far behind it. Everyone on the platform save for the Executor and his liaison jerked in surprise at what they were now seeing; an enormous Ray-class gunship leading a charging wing of nearly a dozen Turian Fast Attack star-fighters!

"As you can see, the decision is no longer up to you commander. And yes _lieutenant_, I'm well aware of how this situation can be salvaged before resorting to simply destroying them. The batteries are an insurance policy, if your runaway terrorists don't comply with these new incentives, then I won't give them the chance to escape and spread their disruption to the rest of the galaxy," Pallin said over to the CO before turning his attention to Chellick, putting a subtle vicious emphasis on his rank as he said this. Without a word everyone watched the approaching confrontation with mixed feelings of apprehension or relief, Pallin and the others awaiting the large group of pursuing craft to begin opening fire on the stolen ship, while Bailey and Chellick looked at each other with a mutual feeling of impending dread beginning to materialize in their guts.

* * *

"Captain's Log: StarDate…something something, something something. After my heroic lead through some of the toughest obstacles the Citadel could throw at us, the crew and I have finally managed to steal an Alliance Corvette as a mode of transportation throughout this galaxy, and are now on route to the planet Therum to rescue the beautiful and mysterious Dr. Liara T'Soni from the clutches of the vile rogue Spectre Saren Arterius. Proceeding at a speed of Warp 7.2…"

"We don't _have_ Warp-Speed Alec," I suddenly called back to the Guardian, abruptly cutting off his impressive impersonation of Jean-Luc Picard in mid-speech. Alec scrunched up his face in a look of mock bewildered shock and gave an annoyed cry of complaint.

"Aww! All this advanced technology and they haven't even come _that_ far?!" he asked out loud to no one in particular as he slouched lazily within the cushioning of the Captain's chair behind me, propping an elbow on one of the armrests and spinning my deactivated Phalanx pistol in circles on his index finger.

"_Done. The coordinates for the Artemis Tau Cluster are now hard-coded into the ship's navigational computers,"_ Haxon reported after I had activated my Savant-X and interfaced him with the _Corsica_'s controls. As I deactivated it and pulled my arm away, I felt Polly climb up along the back of my chair and perch himself on my left shoulder, lightly nuzzling my cheek in a fond greeting.

"How go does our escape gentlemen?" came Yoda's croaky old voice as the Jedi Master quickly ascended up the three steps into the cockpit.

"Ah Mister Yoda, you're late for duty sir. Take your place at the forward Science Station immediately," Alec ordered in a stern voice while fighting to keep from bursting out laughing as he manipulated a small control panel built into the chair's right armrest, slowly swiveling himself around to face the Jedi. Yoda cast me a cocked eyebrow at Alec's odd behavior, earning a shrug and a rolling of my eyes as I too spun my chair around to face him.

"He's been doing that ever since he sat down in that thing. As for how the escape's going, I'd say we're making good time. If we can just get to the Serpent Nebula's Mass Relay before C-Sec figures out we're not on the Citadel anymore, then hopefully we'll be able to…" I began with a hand gesture to the wispy clouds and shining blue expanse that flashed by the Corvette's windshield, when suddenly a series of loud weapons' discharges slammed into the side of the ship, the force actually managing to knock all of us to the floor. Red-hot thermal rounds and blinding weapon blasts flashed in front of the windshield, making the entire ship rock violently from the damaging impacts.

"Looks like they caught on to our sudden departure sooner than we'd hoped. All hands, BATTLE-STATIONS!" Alec roared out to everyone as he pulled himself back up into the Captain's chair. As I got back into my own chair and Yoda braced himself against one of the bulkheads, Polly jumped from my shoulder and quickly scurried off down the main corridor, screeching loudly to the rest of the Replicators as if he were shouting some kind of orders to them. More thermal rounds slammed into us, causing a rain of flaming sparks to burst out from the ceiling as several electrical outlets exploded.

"Hold on," I stated as calmly as I could, manipulating the controls in front of me and putting the _Corsica_ into a series of pre-programmed evasive maneuvers.

Suddenly a few of our attackers flashed into view, appearing to be small winged star-fighters that looked Turian in origin, all of them swooping around us in circles like vultures descending on a dying creature. Another volley of fire from these ships slammed into our hull, causing more rocking damage and sparks to explode out.

"They're turning us into Swiss-Cheese! Raise shields Mister Sorenson!" Alec ordered with a defiant point of his finger to the windshield, looking like a battle hardened general preparing to charge forth into history.

But this only resulted in an awkward pause as we all froze in silence, remaining that way until Alec finally lowered his hand slightly and looked over to me with a worriedly cocked eyebrow.

"We _do_ have shields, right?"

"We have _kinetic barriers_, but that's about it," I answered hesitantly as I began frantically tapping away at the console, activating the already half damaged system in order to provide some protection against the constant beatings our pursuers were dishing out. Another salvo from the fighters impacted against us, this one feeling even harsher than the last and causing the ship to jerk violently to the side.

"SSV Corsica_, this is Executor Pallin of Citadel Security. If the terrorist known as Axel can hear me, know that you are surrounded and cut off from the Mass Relay. The station's heavy forward batteries are targeting your ship as we speak. Power down your vessel and surrender yourselves, and you will be taken into custody peacefully,"_ Pallin's unmistakable voice cut through the air from the control boards' speakers. Alec and I shot each other a terrified look after hearing his name, knowing full well what this meant.

"Well, I guess we _really_ screwed up now!" Alec stated in sarcastic humour, throwing up his hands in defeat with an ironic laugh.

"We've finally caused enough trouble to get the head of the entire Citadel Security Force after us! Can this day get any worse?!" I shouted over the screech of more weapon blasts from the attacking fighters, quickly regretting that last statement as I caught sight of an enormous jet-black Ray-class gunship suddenly arch far out across the front of our ship's bow, its vast array of cannons glowing red after having fired upon us.

"Looks like Thompson got the old bird up and running again after all," Alec remarked at seeing the attacking gunship, even though he didn't actually know if it was the same ship that had chased us all the way from the Market District not too long ago. The _Corsica_ rocked again, giving more agonizing metallic groans or crashing sounds in protest to the fighters' thermal rounds potting across its hull.

"Kinetic barriers are down to 15%! If we take any more of this we're gonna be getting a few new portholes soon!" I reported after a flashing red warning symbol popped up on one of the screens. Suddenly a loud chorus of hisses came from behind us, followed by the mechanical moving sounds of the Replicators. As Alec, Yoda, and I all spun around, we immediately saw Polly and Sparky charging up into the cockpit, flooding the room with nearly fifty other spiders that were rushing up behind them. With a deep frown I pulled away from several of the consoles next to me, allowing the Mechanical Duo and a few other spiders to climb up onto them. After another hiss from Polly, a few dozen of the Replicators on the floor began feeding several thick electrical cables from the back of the ship up toward the front of the cockpit, pushing them along their backs until Polly and Sparky were able to grab onto the ends with their front pincers. With a quick nod from Sparky to the other Replicators beside them, the few that were on the console heated up their pincers and set to work burning down into the device itself!

"Uh guys? What are you doing?" I asked them with startled apprehension, bracing myself against the console dashboard as another volley smashed into us, which most likely signified that our barriers had just been blown out. The spiders made no move to acknowledge me, only continuing down into the console until they had reached whatever circuits they were digging for. After that happened, Polly and Sparky quickly pulled the cables up and shoved their frayed ends down into the newly created pit before them, followed by the other spiders welding and positioning them into place with their pincers, sending blinding sparks and flashes of superheated light flying up around them. At that moment a deep constant humming sound began building up within the control consoles, the attached cables feeding whatever energy source they were connected to directly into the _Corsica_'s kinetic barrier controls.

"Look!" Alec said with his eyes glued to the windshield. Turning to it, I jerked back in surprise as a very faint grey force-field materialized into existence several feet out before the front of the ship. As that happened several of the attacking Turian star-fighters fired on us again, only this time we felt no damaging after-effects. In fact we didn't feel _anything_, the field rippled brightly for a moment as it dispelled the volleys of thermal rounds and energy blasts, leaving us and the Corvette completely unharmed in an oval bubble of shimmering energy!

"No way…you built a _shield-generator_?" I finally asked over to Polly and the others with an astonished smile creeping across my face, glancing along the cables running across the floor down through the corridor to something set up far out of sight beyond the conference table area. Polly and his group were all enthusiastically nodding their bodies, obviously proud of their work as more furious barrages stung at us from the attacking pack of ships, all of them now being harmlessly repelled away by the new shield system.

"They gave us Replicator Shields!" I declared over to Alec and Yoda.

"Now _that's_ more like it! Continue us on course to the Mass Relay Mister Sulu," Alec ordered with a grin as he settled back in the Captain's chair with his hands on the armrests in a pose reminiscent to the classic Captain Kirk, taking the moment to relax now that we weren't needing to brace ourselves against the constant stream of jarring attacks.

"SSV Corsica_, you have had enough time to deliberate upon your answer. Surrender now or I _will_ use the stations batteries to blast you out of the sky. You have one minute to comply,"_ Pallin's voice suddenly barked through the speakers. I merely scoffed with an amused smirk, keeping our shielded Corvette flying on a straight path out of the five Citadel Arms' encompassment, despite the desperate barrages of thermal rounds still trying to hinder our progress.

"Let him try, there's nothing they can do to stop us now," I stated, a firm feeling of relief washing over me as I saw small portions of the colossal two pronged Mass Relay begin to poke out through the thickening Nebula clouds far up ahead of us.

We were now truly, _finally_, within reach of escaping the station that we had been so mercilessly hunted on.

"Against the Citadel's main cannons, will these new shields hold well?" Yoda asked cautiously over to Polly and Sparky. My smirk widened as I looked over to the two, expecting to find them nodding an enthusiastic yes to the Master. But just as I turned to them, I froze, my smirk becoming plastered on my face. The two spiders were slowly looking at each other as if uncertain, hissing hesitantly before suddenly shaking a very obvious negative and scrambling back to work on the cables sticking out of the controls. At this the rest of the Replicators grouped in the cockpit quickly began screeching in alarm and scrambling back toward the rear area of the ship!

"I'm gonna take that as a _no_!" I stated in equal alarm, my feeling of relief dropping abruptly and getting replaced by one of extreme anxiety.

"_We only have forty-five seconds before Pallin opens fire,"_ Haxon reported firmly, his voice steeled to hide any sign that our current predicament was worrying him.

"At maximum speed it'll still take us a good four minutes to get to the Relay! We won't make…" I began after reviewing the holo-screens, fervently tapping away at the controls in a desperate search for something that would make the ship go faster. But then suddenly Alec sprang up from the Captain's chair, his hands held up near his head and one of his trademark grins spread wide across his face.

"WAIT! I'VE GOT IT!" he shouted to all of us, his grin widening even further. (If that was even physically possible)

"You do? Does it involve giving up?" I asked with a hesitant frown, casting an odd look to an equally stunned Yoda and Polly, he and his Replicator brothers all stopping in mid-work to look at the Guardian.  
"Haxon! Are you still somehow connected to the Citadel?" Alec asked quickly while practically jumping over to my left side.  
"_Somewhat from this distance, yes,"_ the A.I. responded hesitantly, clearly just as confused as we were.

"Can you broadcast a wide-band transmission to any communication and video receiving devices built into the Citadel from this position?" the Guardian asked, looking down at my arm with intense anticipation.  
"_Uhh…if I were to push my abilities to the absolute limit I believe so. Why?"_ Without answering, Alec immediately grabbed my left arm by the wrist and harshly pulled it back toward himself, twisting it into the right position and making my omni-tool materialize around my forearm.

"Oww! What're you doing?!" I gasped in pain as he kept my limb firmly locked in his grip, using his other hand to quickly begin tapping at the keys on the omni-tool's controls, bringing up a large screen that showed him starting to sift through multiple video-sites on the Extranet.

"I need your omni-tool for Haxon to broadcast my little surprise. You ready Haxon?" Alec calmly asked while he worked.  
"_I guess, but who exactly am I sending this transmission_ _to?"_ the A.I. asked quickly. Right away the Guardian smiled slyly before answering.  
"_Everyone._ Contact _all _video and audio receiving devices across the entire station!"

There was a pause before Haxon answered in an oddly unsurprised tone of defeat.  
"_I just know that kind of strain is going to hurt me somehow. Oh and by the way, we only have ten seconds left before they open fire."_ My eyes widened at that statement as I kept my gaze focused on whatever the hell Alec was trying to find on my omni-tool.

"Alec, just what exactly _is_ this plan you've developed for saving us at the very last minute?" I asked tensely, still straining my arm against his vice-grip. Alec's smile suddenly fell back into his previous mad grin, the flashing screens in front of him stopping abruptly as he came upon his mystery message.

"Oh nothing, I just thought it was about high time I introduced Pallin to a classic Internet sensation!" With a quick jab of his finger, he pressed the main glowing button on the keyboard and sent out his broadcast.

* * *

Pallin exhaled deeply through his nostrils, his taloned hands unconsciously tightening around his folded arms as he watched the worsening situation playing out across the main screen.

"_We were about to cripple their navigation-array, but an unknown energy field somehow materialized around the ship's outer hull. It's blocking everything we're throwing at it!"_ the voice of Thompson spoke through the speakers of the console connecting the Headquarters to the leading Ray gunship. The senior pilot's assessment wasn't wrong, even after suffering a full powered blast from the Ray's twin particle cannons, the stolen Corvette only continued to rocket away from the station, protected and unharmed within its faintly shimmering shield bubble.

"Their time is up anyway. Control, target the ship's main body structure. Fire on my command only," Pallin ordered to the people sitting at the console ring. Both Bailey and Chellick stepped forward suddenly.

"Executor, there has to be another way! Too much has happened to simply destroy them!" Bailey protested, even as he and his Turian comrade were suddenly grabbed by the shoulders and restrained by two nearby console operators after a nod from Pallin.

"That group has turned multiple sections of this station into utter war-zones! They have humiliated the entire structure of Citadel-Security, made complete _fools_ of several of its officers…" Pallin began saying venomously with a jab of his talon to the main screen, putting extra emphasis into his words as he panned his gaze across Bailey, Chellick, and ending on F'Loson.

"And their simple presence here has resulted in the deaths of over a dozen fine men and women of this police force. That more than warrants me blasting them into oblivion!" With a final glare at Bailey, the Executor turned to the Turian CO standing next to him.  
"Are the forward batteries ready to fire commander?" The CO remained silent for a moment, briefly looking over at Chellick and Bailey with a look of subtle apology in his eyes before answering.

"Arming and awaiting the final order," he reported with a stiff nod. Turning back to the Asari sitting in front of him, Pallin pointed down to her console screen that was showing a circular Defense Cannon targeting reticle focused on the center of the _Corsica_'s main body.  
"Lets see how well those mystery shields of theirs stand up to the full power of the Citadel's main guns. Order the fighter wing to pull back to a safe distance and then zero in on the ship's aft structure, most of its engines and propulsion machinery will be located on the lower decks," he instructed to the operator. Behind him, Chellick turned his head to look over at agent F'Loson, who was standing within the center of the control platform with her arms behind her back calmly looking up at the spectacle on the main screen.

"Ciatra, you can't let this happen," he hissed over to her. F'Loson merely cocked an eyebrow as she turned to meet his gaze, her expression remaining completely apathetic.  
"I don't understand why you're making such a fuss Chellick. If we simply destroy them now it will put an end to this debacle and keep their disruption from stretching out into the rest of Council territory."

"And what about all the unanswered questions that are swirling around this incident, all the resources both in equipment and in lives that were poured into this? Do you want all of that to have been for nothing?!" Chellick demanded angrily, tugging halfheartedly against the two operators restraining him. For a moment F'Loson's expression softened subtly at his words, her eyes slightly looking down at the floor in contemplation.

"Aft engines and propulsion systems targeted," the Asari operator reported to Pallin after recalibrating the forward batteries. This announcement made F'Loson snap out of her brief lapse in personality, causing her to straighten up and look back ahead at the main screen.  
"We all have our orders Chellick, its better for everyone that we follow them." Chellick sneered at that statement before turning back to Bailey, shaking his head to his Human partner with a hopeless sense of defeat. Both he and Bailey looked on at the image of the _Corsica_ as Pallin prepared to give the order, unable to do anything but watch as the only people with the answers to everything that had happened today were about to be destroyed.

"Main batteries prepare to fire…" Pallin announced to every operator on the control platform, raising his right hand in a somewhat dramatic show of military command.

"I'm sorry Bailey," Chellick said over to the lieutenant, feeling sure that this was the end. Bailey nodded slowly in agreement, knowing full well that after this was over it was most likely going to be the end of their careers as well.  
"Me too…" he muttered in return.

"All batteries! FI…" Pallin began in a booming voice, when suddenly he was cut off in mid-sentence!

A loud odd type of music had abruptly begun echoing all around the Headquarters, booming out from every speaker or appliance capable of transmitting sound. And it wasn't just that, everyone in the room was starting to speak to each other in heightened voices of confusion as the room's main screen suddenly changed from the image of the Corsica to that of a strange video that had begun playing. The same thing was happening to all of the consoles, terminals, and turret control platforms across the area, each of their screens winking out for a moment before being replaced with a duplicate of the film playing on the main one.

"What the hell is this?!" the CO demanded angrily to Pallin over the sound of the music, jabbing his talon to the dozen now identical screens surrounding them on the control platform. Pallin was stunned, rendered frozen and mute with confusion as he gaze up at the main screen. The video currently playing appeared to be of a young Human man with fiery red hair, dressed in a brown blazer and white dress pants with dark brown leather shoes. At the moment he was standing on a bright white stage with background windows, matching a terribly repetitive set of dance moves with his hands and hips to the quick notes of the music. As this continued, a series of quick shots featuring several long blonde haired women flashed into view, each of these women showing off considerably better dancing skills than the man was. For several seconds this kept up, with the man briefly popping back into frame standing on a grassy sidewalk dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, before suddenly switching into a beige trench coat and standing in a nighttime back-alleyway as he started singing to the music with what seemed to be an overly deep voice.

"_We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I!" _

Pallin's mouth fell open slightly with a clear bewildered sense of insult. He had heard this music once before back when he had studied Human history. But it couldn't possibly be what he thought it was!

"Sirs! We're getting reports from all over the Citadel; something hacked into our wide-band receivers a few seconds ago. This video is playing on _every_ audio and video-receiving device across the entire station! We're now blind and inoperable!" another console operator reported over to Pallin and the CO after a deafening barrage of reports began screaming through his earpiece.

"_A full commitment's what I'm thinkin' of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy…"_

Pallin ignored the loud video of the badly dancing red haired man as he reached over and grabbed the CO by the arm, pulling him closer so that he could shout into his ear.  
"We still have control of out-going transmissions! Send a signal to the _Palaven-Star_ and the _Death-Claw;_ order them to cut the _Corsica_ off before she can reach the Relay. Make sure they use everything they've got to blast Axel to smithereens!"

* * *

Across the Citadel, people from every walk of life were trying to talk to each other over the loud music that had begun playing from every speaker that could possibly exist on the station. Screens in office buildings, cafés, lush Presidium parks, theatres, gymnasiums, even C-Sec and military installations had suddenly activated or changed channels and were now playing the video of the red haired man and his two female backup dancers.

In a certain café next to one of the Presidium Lakes, Emily Wong, the Salarian owner Kalowan, and all of his patrons were watching several holographic screens playing out across the walls next to their tables. Several of them were trying to find out what was going on, while many others such as Emily and Kalowan were simply sitting back with their drinks and watching the video.

"_I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling…"_

* * *

Kilometers away, lying in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped tightly around his left leg and medi-gel smeared across the side of his face, was Sergeant Verrak Vakarian. Having been taken here by C-Sec medics after the battle in the Market Corridor, the recovering Vakarian was watching the holo-screen hung up in the corner of his room with a cocked brow-ridge, shaking his head in slow realization as he watched the red haired Human dance and sing in multiple locations wearing multiple sets of clothing.

"_Gotta make you understand…" _

"Alec…" Verrak said to himself with a small smirk, easily recognizing this video as something the insane shape-shifting criminal might pull off just before he was about to escape.

* * *

In locations all over the Wards and the Presidium, thousands of people began gathering in huge mobs around holographic pillars and billboards placed in their areas, watching the strange video play in front of them.

"_Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down!"_ the red haired man sang, his voice echoing out across the Serpent Nebula from the speakers and screens his music was playing through.

Streams of hover cars within the crisscrossing Fast Travel Lanes started to jam up as hundreds of drivers began slowing down their vehicles in order to get a better view of the singing man displayed on the many enormous screens built into the sides of towers and spires set up all around the Presidium's hull.

"_Never gonna run around and desert you!"_

However despite all the disruption this was causing, many people soon began cheering; shouting in celebration and waving their arms like the fans of a hockey team that had just won the Stanley Cup!

"AXEL! AXEL! AXEL!" they all screamed in unison, chanting the runaway criminal's name, somehow knowing that this sudden music video that had hijacked pretty much every inch of the Citadel had come from him and his band of misfits.

* * *

"_Never gonna make you cry! Never gonna say goodbye!"_

Up in the Council Chambers atop the Citadel Tower, the groups of politicians and civilians present were all looking at the various screens and terminals spread around the area, each of them just as curious or confused by the strange video as the millions of people far down below them.  
The dancing man also continued to do his performance in front of the Salarian and Asari Counselors, both of who were standing at their terminals on their high platform looking up at the giant holo-projector that Saren Arterius had used to communicate with them during his hearing.

Only instead of displaying any commanders or known contacts of the Council, a colourless thirty-foot tall hologram of the red haired man was now swaying his hips and swinging his arms within the projector's field of view!

The Asari Counselor could only groan in annoyance and deeply pinch the bridge of her nose to ease the sudden headache she had begun experiencing. There was no way they were _ever_ going to live this one down.

* * *

I blinked. And blinked. And blinked again before finally coming back to my senses, allowing myself to relax the severe frown of bewilderment that had fallen across my face. As the infamous Rick Astley kept singing and dancing away on my omni-tool's screen, Alec was busy circling his fists around each other in sync with the music, bobbing his head up and down and swaying his shoulders, his eyes wedged shut and a massive grin of hilariousness spread across his own face.

"_Never gonna tell a lie, and hurt you!"_

"Haxon, make sure this stays on a protected loop across the Citadel. We don't want those cannons coming back on-line for another few minutes," Alec instructed over the rest of Astley's lyrics, even while he continued to bob his head to the beat.

"_Already done. I figured you'd want to give C-Sec the full treatment before we left,"_ Haxon answered immediately in a strained voice, sounding out of breath as if he had just run a marathon after the extreme effort he had just put out. After shutting down the video and making my omni-tool vanish, I looked over to Alec as he turned to me with his wide grin, my look of pure astonishment still on my face.

"What?" he asked rhetorically after a moment of silence, his expression never changing.

"You…_Rick-Rolled_…the Citadel. You actually Rick-Rolled the _entire_ Citadel?!"

Alec only laughed at my semi-horrified question as he moved over and sat back down in the Captain's chair.  
"Uh yeah, because I'm awesome," he answered in an overly proud voice with a pronounced smirk, as if he expected the renown of his awesomeness to already be public knowledge.

"That's either madness or…brilliant!" I stated after a quick moment to think it over, cracking an astonished smile despite myself.

"You wouldn't believe how often I've seen those two go together in my lifetime," Alec added in with a slight wince and a chuckle, as if he were reflecting on a slightly unpleasant but comical memory. As we were speaking, Yoda had come to a stand beside Alec's chair and was now staring up at the windshield, narrowing his large eyes to get a better look at what was visible of the Citadel's Mass Relay from this distance.

"Until we reach the Mass Relay, how long do we have Axel?" he asked over to me. Spinning my swivel chair around to the controls, I did a quick scan of the console screen before looking up at the windshield.

"With the fighter-wing having broken off from us, and with Pallin now out of the fight, we should make it to the Relay in just over a minute or sooooooooohh SHIT!" I began explaining before seeing two large shadows begin to darken the Nebula clouds on either side of our intended flight path.

Just as I said this, the bows of two massive Turian Battle-Cruisers cut out into the bright white glow of Widow's sun-rays, making the many barrels of their intimidating forward weapon emplacements glint slightly from the radiance!

"SSV Corsica_, this is the_ Palaven-Star_ of the Citadel Defense Fleet. You are ordered to power down your engines or be destroyed, repeat you are ordered to power down your engines or be destroyed,"_ came a harsh Turian voice from out of our communications console. Immediately I swiveled around to face Alec with a cocked eyebrow.

"So Picard, you got any other brilliant ideas for getting us out of this?" I asked sarcastically with a hand gesture to the two nearing ships. Alec only shook his head while throwing up his hands in surrender.

"Hey, I just saved us from being blasted to bits by C-Sec, its _your_ turn now."

"I don't suppose our shields would be strong enough to stand up against those guns either?" I asked over to Polly and Sparky. Right on queue the two Replicators paused in whatever work they were doing to the cables sticking out of the consoles, quickly looking up at me and shaking another _no_ before returning to their frantic attempts at upgrading the system. Blowing out a deep breath, I laced my hands in my lap and slumped back lazily in my seat.  
"Welllll…we're cut off, we're outnumbered, and our shields are useless. Any suggestions anyone?" I asked casually to the crew with a deliberate raising of my eyebrows. Everyone, even the wise Yoda, shook their heads or bodies in defeat. I shook my own head with an ironic chuckle.

"You know, if Leonard McCoy were here and I asked him that same question, he'd probably say 'Dammit man! I'm a doctor, not a…" I began while trying to make a good impersonation of DeForest Kelly, hoping to tell one last joke in my lifetime before being blasted into oblivion, when all of a sudden…

"_Axel! I have a solution!"_

I tried forcing myself not to seem too startled by our A.I.'s announcement, but I wasn't able to keep my back from going as stiff as a board and my eyes from widening immediately.

"Or Haxon could just come out and save us at the last possible second," I finished while straining to make my voice still sound casual.  
"I hate to seem like a pessimist but it may be too late. They're about to fire," Alec said with a jab of his finger to the two battleships, having just noticed a deep blue glow begin to shine out from the depths of their large cannon barrels.

"_Buckle up and interface me with the main controls!"_ Haxon ordered tensely as I spun around to see the change in the approaching Cruisers for myself.

"Why? What's the plan?!" I asked hurriedly as I quickly pulled and fastened the swivel chair's two crossing seatbelt harnesses over my chest, activating my Savant-X once again in the process.  
"_No time to explain, GIVE ME THE SHIP!"_ With little to argue about I could only shrug and braced myself as I slammed my open palm against the console dashboard, creating a cyberspace bridge for Haxon to travel through my omni-tool and take direct control of the _Corsica_.

"Here it comes!" Alec shouted to everyone, grabbing onto both of his armrests as several deep booming thunderclaps echoed out across the space surrounding us, the _Palaven-Star_ and its companion ship firing several blue energy blasts from the main guns attached to the underside of their main bodies. Seconds before this racing barrage could hit us; a pulsating sound flashed from the cockpit's controls, followed by an odd sensation of semi-weightlessness and lightheadedness.

"What just…" I barely began saying before suddenly the Corvette rocketed forward three times faster than it had been a moment ago, while at the same time blasting several navigational boosters jutting out from its roof and dropping us down out of the Cruisers' line-of-fire like a stone!

Now normally that kind of maneuver wouldn't have caused much of a problem, but in this instance something strange happened to the artificial gravity the _Corsica_ was generating that had kept us properly attached to the floor this entire time.

Instead of having the gravity adapt to the movements Haxon had just put us through; Alec, Yoda, the Replicators, and I found ourselves yelling in one way or another as the sudden drop caused all of us to fly up from the cockpit's floor toward its ceiling!

I took some small comfort in the fact that I was still attached to my seat, the crisscrossing harness that Haxon had urged me to strap on digging into my armoured shoulders from the odd change in gravity. The others however weren't so lucky, each of them smashing into the ceiling head on and becoming plastered against it for a few moments before the barrage of Cruiser fire harmlessly went by over top of us, allowing Haxon to cease our sudden drop and continue flying onward. All of us yelled again as we dropped back down to the ground, Yoda managing to land rather comfortably in the cushioning of the Captain's chair while Alec and the Replicators unfortunately slammed down hard onto the floor around him.

"Somebody wanna tell me what in Hel's name _that_ was?!" Alec asked angrily while rubbing the side of his head.

"_I had to transfer most of the power from the internal motion-dampeners to the navigational thrusters, it's giving us the energy I need to make the _Corsica_ dodge the fire from those Cruisers while getting us to the Mass Relay faster," _Haxon explained quickly.

"But on the flip side that's going to throw us around the inside of this thing like a Piñata!" I yelled as the Turian ships began slowly rotating inward, retraining their guns on us before the one on our right started firing another barrage as we began passing underneath them.

"_I'm sorry, there wasn't enough time to think of a better plan. Just make sure you keep the connection between the controls and your omni-tool open or this'll be a very short trip!"_ Haxon shouted to me before manipulating the Corvette again.

"At least give us a chance to, AHHHHG!" Alec shouted frantically before screaming as Haxon fired the thrusters jutting out of the ship's port side, diagonally cutting us across a wide distance and swooping low underneath the massive flaming cannon blasts. Behind me Yoda was grunting in effort while digging his nails into an armrest of the Captain's chair, his entire body haphazardly floating in mid-air as he fought against the redirection in gravity. As that was happening, Alec, Polly, and the other Replicators could only continue to scream or screech as they flew across the room and slammed into the left wall of the cockpit. I bared my teeth, straining every muscle in my body to help my harness keep me firmly within my seat, pressing my hand against the dashboard with all my might to make sure Haxon's connection remained intact. Glancing up through the windshield toward the port side of the ship, I could see the _Palaven-Star_ following the same action its sister ship was taking, retargeting us and making the insides of their forward guns glow blue again in preparation to fire.

"Haxon!" I warned in the face of the oncoming danger, my breathing becoming tighter from the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

"_I know, HOLD ON!"_ he responded before activating and firing the booster thrusters built into the _starboard_ side of the Corvette.

"WAIT! Give us a sec to, HAHHGGH!" the Guardian began, shaking a hand to me in desperation before screaming again as he and the others were forcibly launched from the left wall and thrown across the cockpit to the right!

The _Palaven-Star_ had just fired its deadly barrage, but thanks to Haxon's careful calculations all of its bright blue cannon blasts narrowly flashing over the top of our hull as the A.I. pulled the _Corsica_ into another low arcing swoop.

"The second one's firing again!" I shouted over the roar of more resounding thunderclaps coming from the other Cruiser.

"_On it!"_ Haxon shouted, firing the thrusters on the port side again.

"Come on, you gotta be kidding me, AHHHGG!" Alec shouted as he flew past the back of my chair across the room once again, crashing against the left wall for a second time with Polly, Sparky, and the other few Replicators unintentionally smashing into him.

For a whole hectic minute this continued, with Haxon using his advanced processing speed to anticipate and avoid everything the two Cruisers tried to throw at us, keeping us blasting forward across space while zigzagging from side to side underneath them. Unfortunately this also meant for that entire time Alec and the others, except Yoda who was still hanging onto his chair, continued to get thrown back and forth from each side of the cockpit, briefly screaming each time before smashing into either wall!

The same thing was happening farther back in the other areas of the ship, with the rest of the Replicator horde screeching and desperately latching onto anything nearby, including each other, in order to keep from being tossed from one side of the ship to the other. Finally after the third or forth maneuver, Haxon leveled the ship out and put it into a straight forward charge, clearing away from the two Turian ships and blasting us toward the now completely visible Mass Relay lying dead ahead.

"Is this nightmare about to end?!" Alec pleaded in a strained voice as he and the others crashed down onto the floor and skid to a painful looking stop on their backs next to the side of my chair.

"_I think it did just a second ago, look at what we managed to do while we had their attention focused us!"_ Haxon stated in a relieved tone, making a small screen pop up on one of the holographic consoles beside my still interfaced Savant-X. Lifting a shaky hand and grabbing onto the dashboard, Alec grunted and wheezed as he pulled himself up onto his knees so that his head could ascend above the edge, allowing himself to see what exactly Haxon was talking about. On the screen was a clear picture showing a large portion of the slowly shrinking Citadel, most likely taken from a security camera placed at the aft section of our ship. As we continued flying farther away, the hulls of the two huge Cruisers suddenly pulled into view, both of them frantically firing hundreds of navigational thrusters and unceremoniously gliding within mere inches of each other!

We had unintentionally caused them to nearly collide!

* * *

On the darkened low ceilinged bridge of the _Palaven-Star_, the Turian officers and crewmen present were working away like mad, trying to coordinate with the _Death-Claw_ across from them while at the same time rotate their ship to keep up with the faster and significantly more maneuverable Alliance Corvette.

"I want another salvo fired as soon as we line back up with them!" the Cruiser's Captain ordered to the helmsmen and gunner crews working away at the line of control consoles stationed in front of the bridge's wide view-port windshield. As the _SSV Corsica_ shot forward underneath them on its way to the Mass Relay, the two enormous ships continued to sluggishly turn inwards in pursuit, their great size and mass making it practically impossible for them to turn on a dime. Unfortunately what the operators of both ships weren't realizing was that in the time they had been turning and firing upon the fleeing criminals' ship, they had failed to notice that their own ships were still drifting forward during their rotations.

"Captain!" one of the officers shouted, pointing a talon up at the windshield. All of the Turians on the command deck gave a small gasp as they saw the front of the _Death-Claw_'s bow begin to drift dangerously close to their own, threatening to smash into them in less than a minute!

"Take evasive action!" the Captain barked over to the helmsmen, his orders immediately being answered by a deep klaxon alarm booming out and a flashing red light illuminating the dark room. Everyone who wasn't sitting in a chair suddenly found themselves struggling to keep from falling over, many of them staggering against consoles or bracing against bulkheads as the battleship began slanting to the side.

Across its belly and along its portside wing, the _Palaven-Star_ began firing hundreds of it navigational rockets, abruptly ceasing in its inward turn and lurching into a heavy skewed climb that veered off to the right. The commander of the _Death-Claw_ seemed to be smart enough not to try and force his own way out, sending his Cruiser into an immediate dive underneath its sister to allow the first to glide safely overtop of its back. While this might have worked had the _Palaven-Star_ been only climbing through the air, the _Death-Claw_ didn't have enough time or room for maneuver to avoid smashing its port wing into the _Star_'s slanted starboard one!

A loud scream of breaking metal shot across the airless vacuum as the two wings collided in a slanted X of sorts, twisting and snapping off a portion of their ends as they slammed against each other.

* * *

"Oh…they are so going to sue us into the ground for that," Alec stated with a deep wince as he saw the hundreds of torn pieces of debris begin to float up around the damaged ships.

"_At least it was just the wings and not something more sensitive, none of their crews will have been killed from that collision,"_ Haxon explained.  
"Technically a fault of theirs it was for moving so close to each other," Yoda added in from the Captain's chair, leaning back comfortably into its cushioning while crossing his legs.  
"Look on the bright side guys, we made it! The Relay is right in front of us, we can finally get out of here now!" I declared with a wide grin, gesturing to the gargantuan grey metal structure floating in front of us. The rest of the crew, even Polly and Sparky, seemed to share my sentiments with a collective hiss/breath of relief.

Suddenly however, the set of giant hoops spinning around the Mass Relay's glowing blue core began to speed up in their rotations, going faster and faster for a few seconds before very abruptly stopping all lined up together. Immediately as that happened a massive section of the space surrounding the Relay seemed to warp, followed by a faint blue aura of Mass Effect energy shooting out alongside its length.

In that moment the famed _Destiny Ascension_, the massive cross-shaped Asari Dreadnought and flagship of the entire Citadel Fleet flashed into existence, followed by over a dozen other Turian Battle-Cruisers fanning out around it!

"Well fuck that!" Alec said matter-of-factly after a pause of awkward silence. (We've been having a lot of those lately.)

"That's uhh…that's one, three, ten, fifteen, and then there's the _Ascension_," I began counting off the numerous ships despite the atmosphere of the situation as we continued flying closer to the opposing fleet.

"I'll tell you what that is, that's gods-damn _overkill_! We may have caused damage on that station but we didn't cause enough to warrant calling in the entire Fleet on our ass!" Alec shouted furiously while snapping up to his feet and jabbing a finger at the colossal Dreadnought in front of us.

"SSV Corsica_, this is the Des…"_ the voice of the _Ascension_'s Asari Captain began speaking through our consoles, but we had already heard this line a thousand times today.

"Shut up!" Alec and I said in unison as he reached over and clicked the console off.

"_The_ Ascension_ is targeting us with their main cannon! Even with my calculations we won't be able to dodge a blast of that magnitude!"_ Haxon reported as the giant oval centerpiece protruding outward from the Dreadnought's midsection began to glow a bright white-blue colour.

"Unless we continuously dodge it while it's firing," I said quickly as I used my right hand to bring up several manual flight control screens on my console.

"_And how exactly do you plan on doing that?"_ With a wicked grin I pressed the fingers of my right hand on the holographic levers of the screen before me, the very ones that that were controlling the level of power the _Corsica_'s main propulsion thrusters were putting out.

"By winging it. We're going to use my Human unpredictability with your enhanced A.I. processers. Make sure you use the navigational thrusters in sync with what I'm about to do as best as you can."

Just as I finished instructing this, the _Ascension_'s main cannon let out an enormous humming sound that seemed to vibrate the very space around us, showing that the weapon was seconds away from unleashing its full might. And in that precious few seconds, Alec could only turn to me with his jaw dropped and a look of unbelievable horror stricken across his face.

"WINGING IT?!" he blurted out at the instant the Dreadnought fired, blasting out a blinding continuous burst of white light directly at us. At the exact second that this happened, I rammed the propulsion levers up to the their farthest notches, followed immediately by me flicking my hand up and rotating a holographic dial meant for controlling a portion of the ship's steering sharply to the left.

I was thrown back in my seat as the sudden increase in speed hit us, fighting to keep both my hands attached to the console against the unchecked G-Forces pressing in on me. As the _Corsica_ blasted forward, my turning of the steering dial made it twist upward onto its back, making us barely manage to swipe up out of the way of the _Ascension_'s main cannon blast. With expert help from Haxon firing the navigational thrusters on all needed sides, and from me keeping my hand constantly rotating the dial at a steady pace, the Corvette began quickly spiraling around the destructive beam of light like the red stream on a Candy Cane!

Amazingly this improvised and unexpected tactic was actually working just as I had hoped, keeping the ship and ourselves alive by corkscrewing around the outer edge of the blast's diameter just fractionally out of harm's way. Although this also meant that anyone who wasn't properly strapped in was going to experience one gut wrenching ride, made evident by the new chorus of yells and screaming that rose up from the rest of the group. At the moment that I had turned the dial and sent us into this insane swirling charge; Alec, the Replicators, and now even Yoda had been thrown up from their positions toward the ceiling once again. Only this time because the ship's gravity was constantly in motion as we spiraled around and round' the beam blast, the group wasn't smashing into the ceiling or any of the walls this time. Instead they were floating and spinning in mid-air, the changes in gravity making their bodies almost completely weightless!

"We're gonna die! WE'RE GONNA DIE! First I'm gonna throw up an then we're gonna die!" Alec shouted to everyone, holding onto the back of the Captain's chair by his extended talons with Yoda tightly holding onto his shoulder, both of their legs and torsos flinging about wildly from the Corvette's spinning motion as they desperately tried keeping themselves anchored to the chair.

"Stabilize Axel! Stabilize it you must!" Yoda shouted frantically over to me, ducking his head as Sparky and other Replicators flew screeching past his ear. Outside, the Replicator's new shields were flaring brightly against the searing heat of the Dreadnought's blast, blocking out as much of it as they could but being unable to keep our white and blue hull from giving off billowing wisps of steam as the top plates began to glow red hot from the extreme temperature. More flaming sparks and fragments of debris began to explode out from panels and components around the cockpit as the ship's systems began to overload from the strain, the entire vessel quaking underneath us with a deep metallic groan.

"HERE I COME LADDIES! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I bellowed out loudly with an insane grin, craning over the consoles to keep the ship under mine and Haxon's control, overcoming my fear of this perilous moment with death defying humour as I used the same line that crazy Royal Air-Force pilot had shouted out during his only action scenes in _The Mummy_!

Twice more we spiraled around the Blinding-Beam-Of-Death, every second rocketing closer and closer toward the _Destiny Ascension_ and her still firing main gun. Finally after flying us almost into the very mouth of the gun itself, I sharply manipulated the controls with a defiant shout and sent the _Corsica_ shooting up from the beam, skimming us over one of the Dreadnought's wide branching wings and leveling us out onto our belly. With a fluttering trail of steam coming from our quickly cooling hull, we shot away from the back of the Dreadnought and came racing up alongside the large round section at the back of the Relay's two pronged frame.

"Hwoow! That was fun! Who wants to wheel around and do it again?!" I asked jokingly back to the others as I disconnected Haxon's cyber bridge and deactivated my omni-tool, leaning back in my chair and breathing deeply to still my rapidly thumping heart.

"What good did it do us? How are we suppose to use the Mass Relay with _those_ guys moving around it?!" Alec pointed out as he jumped up to his feet after he and the others had crashed back down onto the floor. Coming over to my side again, Alec and I looked out through the windshield at the space ahead of us, seeing the rest of the Battle-Cruisers spread out along the length of the Relay close to its hull. This tactic effectively cut us off from being able to use the Relay itself, barring our escape.

"We haven't come this far to be stopped now. There's gotta be some way to get out of this, there's _always_ another way!" I began saying optimistically, looking at the giant grey superstructure gliding past our left side while trying to formulate a new strategy.

"Whatever that other way is you better find it quickly, they're closing in around us," Alec said down to me with a sweeping hand gesture, indicating several of the Turian ships that had started to turn and move toward our position.

"_The Mass Relay will not operate for oncoming ships while new arrivals are still in the vicinity, it's a hardcoded safeguard that the Asari added to its mechanisms during the early days of the Council. That basically means there is no way for us to activate the Relay while the Turian fleet is still around it."_ While Haxon tensely explained this not so encouraging fact, Alec and Yoda were frantically looking between the many nearing Cruisers, seeing the familiar blue glow of their forward cannon barrels as their weapons began preparing to fire.

"Come on there has to be another way to use it, what if we tried…" I began asking the A.I., when all of a sudden a faint sizzling sound began emanating from a section of the floor next to my left side. Startled by the sight of smoke wisps rising up from underneath the deck plating, the three of us all recoiled away as the section dissolved into superheated liquid, quickly being eaten away by a familiar acid and creating a hole that gave us a good view of the deck below us. Immediately Polly sprung up from where he had landed on the floor, nonchalantly jumping onto Alec and springboarding himself onto the control consoles in front of me. Leaning over the edge Polly gave a great commanding hiss down into the hole, his order being answered immediately by a large platoon of Replicator spiders and beetles that started clawing their way up into the cockpit.

Except they weren't coming up and fanning out, instead all of them began disassembling their bodies and piecing together their many interconnecting blocks into a single frame, quickly building a curved and complex machine of some kind that covered the hole and rose up until it was level with my waist. After a few moments, the blocks from the last Replicator's body traveled up and formed into a large mechanical lever that looked it belonged in the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon_. A smooth humming came from the new machine as the final components slid together, causing many system indicators and a series of notches lined up behind the lever to light up a deep blue colour. I turned to Polly with a cocked eyebrow.  
"So what did you guys build this time, a super-powered escape device that can teleport us out of here?" I asked with a half smile, not really expecting an answer.

But to my surprise Polly quickly began nodding a _yes_, repeatedly jabbing his red right leg down at the machine as if telling me to use it!

"Seriously?!" I asked with a shocked start, now examining every detail I could make out from the machine with the few seconds we still had. The Cruisers had now come to a full stop encircling us, all of them targeting our ship with their fully charged weapons.

"I guess it can't hurt to give it a try," I stated to everyone with a shrug before gripping the lever with my left hand and gradually pulling it back. The blue notches each lit up brighter as the lever passed by them one after the other, the humming increasing in speed and pitch as more and more power was drawn from whatever this thing was attached to in the decks below.

Suddenly far out ahead of us behind the fleet of ships, a large shifting purple cloud began flickering into existence beside the Mass Relay, its essence slowly fluctuating in graceful movements. My eyes were wide for the millionth time today, instantly recognizing the look of the cloud and what it meant.

"_The Replicators have done something to the navigational computers. Whatever this machine is, it's drawing out and utilizing the coordinates that I locked in earlier for the Artemis Tau Cluster,"_ Haxon reported as his sensors scanned what was happening.

"Wait a minute, that thing isn't a teleporter, it's a…" Alec began, looking between the machine and the spectacle out in space as he too recognized the cloud's appearance.

"That's a Hyperspace Window. They built us a _Stargate_ hyperdrive!" I said to everyone while looking at Polly with a wide grin of gratitude. Immediately I punched a series of button taps into my console, redirecting our path to line up directly with that of the Window.

"You can't be serious," Alec quickly stated down to me, all of us bracing against the dashboard as the _Corsica_ shifted to the side.

"Alec this is our ticket outta here! And better yet it means we won't need to use the Mass Relays for getting around in the future; the Council won't be able to use them to track us down!" I explained eagerly to him, keeping my attention focused on getting us to the Window as fast as possible. Quickly we shot closer and closer to our new escape route, gradually beginning to cut down under or around the group of Cruisers loosely arrayed in front of us.

"We're actually going in there? We have no idea if it'll work properly in this universe, or how the Replicators managed to build it in the first place!" Alec pointed out apprehensively, casting both the Window and Polly an uneasy look.  
"I said the same thing about the Iron Man suit, and it turned out better then we ever could have hoped for! Besides we're the new Pirates of Mass Effect, this is what we do!"

"Better chances of surviving in there than staying here we have!" Yoda yelled to Alec over the thunderous barrage of cannon blasts that had just fired from the Cruisers!

Alec gave a huffing shrug and a wholehearted nod of agreement to both of us.

"Alright, UNTO THE BREACH THEN!" he declared, striking an awesome adventurer's pose and pointing a finger at the oncoming purple cloud mass, an epic grin of defiance instantly spread across his face. With a grin that could match his I pulled the Hyperdrive lever all the way back to its furthest notch, lighting all of it's systems in blue and causing the constant humming to spike again. The decks and walls soon began shaking, the Corvette's speed progressively increasing to dangerous levels. In the span of a second our ship flashed underneath the streams of cannon barrage, widely dodging the blazing blasts and passing between the Turian Cruisers before their operators had a chance to register what had happened.

All of us had now begun shouting in fright, the _Corsica_ blasting into the mouth of the Hyperspace Window with such force that it tore me from my harness and threw everyone backwards across the length of the cockpit.

With a great flash of light the ship's modified Replicator engines rocketed out large jets of blue flame and threw us into the centerfolds of the Window, our essence disappearing from sight a millisecond before the purple vortex itself dispersed into nothingness!

* * *

Everyone gasped or jerked their heads in surprise, the shock of what had just happened creating a pandemonium of delayed activity throughout the entire Headquarters. Pallin could only blink, his professional pride and military training allowing him to stifle his bafflement and the swelling of rage he was beginning to feel rising up in his chest. But it wasn't enough to keep a subtle Turian from creeping across his avian face. Behind him Bailey and Chellick had been released from their restrainers, both men looking up at the finally cleared up main screen with wide eyes and ironic half smiles of astonishment.

"He did it," Chellick stated, still flabbergasted by the unexpected outcome of this entire ordeal. Bailey was nodding his head, a weird sense of admiration spreading through him as he continued staring at the spot where Axel's ship had just vanished from.

"Yes he did."

"Coordinate with the Fleet, have them escort the _Palaven-Star_ and the _Death-Claw_ into the Docks for repairs," Pallin began saying to the CO before turning around toward the duo.

"And you three…" the Executor breathed venomously at the two lieutenants and agent F'Loson, who was standing stiffly with her eyes focused ahead and her expression remaining coldly neutral.

"I am holding you all personally responsible for this entire fiasco. You will report to my office immediately for a long debriefing on the events that occurred during your little adventures, and on the future of your continued involvement with C-Sec in any capacity. This that understood?" Pallin demanded, flicking his eyes between the three officers.

"Yes sir," F'Loson answered automatically with dutiful firmness. Bailey and Chellick didn't answer for a moment, both men regarding their superior with barely noticeable scowls before they gave a stiff nod in unison.

"Yes sir," they finally said in a cold tone, the thought of the next few hours ahead leaving bitter tastes in their mouths. Pallin regarded the two for a long moment before turning toward the Headquarters' blast-doors.

But suddenly, just as the Executor had taken his first step off of the command platform, the main screen behind him changed from the security camera footage it was showing. A blinding white light briefly shot out across the room before a deep voice angrily boomed throughout the entire chamber.

"_EXECUTOR PALLIN!"_

The enraged roar of the Turian Counselor caused Pallin to freeze in place and everyone to shoot their gazes up to the screen. Slowly turning around to face _his_ superior, Pallin carefully removed all emotion from his features and his voice as he straightened up and set his jaw.

"Yes Counselor?" he answered up to the Turian's enormous visage, one that showed him standing near the open balcony of his sunny white office in the Embassy District. Right away the Counselor deliberately held up an OSD pad for everyone present to see, one that was activated and showing a very familiar video of the badly dancing Rick Astley on its screen.

"_Never gonna give you up…"_ the chorus of the infamous Rick-Roll could be heard coming from it, causing many people to look over at Pallin as he closed his eyes in preparation for what was coming next.

"_Would you kindly explain to me why _this_ has been playing over and over again on every communications outlet in the Embassy area, including my private terminals?"_ the Counselor asked with unconcealed expectancy. Pallin cleared his throat and placed his hands behind his back.

"It is a widespread viral video message that the terrorist Axel transmitted during his…" the Executor began before the Counselor suddenly interrupted him.

"_During his recent escape from the Citadel, one which was made possibly by your so many obvious blunders Pallin."_ Pallin's eyes widened and a confused frown formed on his brow-ridges as he cast an accusatory look over at Bailey and Chellick.

"Counselor, I wasn't involved in the manhunt for Axel and his accomplices until recently, I left most of that to my officers which I had hoped…" Pallin began stating defensively, only to be interrupted _again_.

"_You are the Executor of Citadel Security. The safety of this station is _your_ responsibility and _your_ duty to take seriously when a threat arises. If there is any blame to be found in this matter, most will be on you for not putting your full attention on this sooner before it became out of hand,"_ the Turian stated with a point of his talon down to the Executor. Pallin's eyes widened slightly.

"Counselor…" he stated almost in bewilderment, clearly not believing what he was hearing.

"_You will report to my office within the next hour Executor. You and I are going to have a little talk about proper management of duties,"_ the Counselor said immediately, pausing for a moment to let that sink in. Pallin stiffened, his face dropping into a stern look before giving a sharp nod to the Counselor's image.

"Yes sir," he said immediately. With a click the Counselor severed his connection with the Headquarters, making his image vanish from the main screen. Without any threats or begrudging glances, Pallin only sharply nodded to F'Loson before he and she turned and quickly made their way out through the blast-doors.

Giving a short astonished laugh of sorts, Bailey and Chellick absently walked over toward the center of the platform, watching the Executor and his liaison leave with semi-dropped jaws.

"You know, technically he can't fire us now without the Counselor's say so," Chellick said over to Bailey with a smirk. Bailey chuckled, still shocked by the outcome of this whole mess but now even more so by the fact that he might still get to keep his job. But before they could say anything else, both men heard a hearty laughter coming from behind before a firm three taloned hand came up and clapped both of them on the back.

"You boys finally got him outta here. The drinks are on me!" the Turian CO stated with a wide grin, standing almost in-between them and wrapping an arm around the backs of their shoulders. Bailey and Chellick looked at each other for a quick moment before nodding their heads and arching their mouths in agreement to the commander's proposition, feeling a drink was definitely in order after the rough ride they had been on.

**So finally after **_**two years**_** since I started writing this, Axel and the team have made it off the Citadel and started their epic journey throughout the universe of Mass Effect in earnest!  
I apologize for the bazillionth time again for not getting this out as soon as I led you guys and myself to believe, and the fact that the length of this was nowhere near shorter than the last one as I had thought it would be. But it's out now and at least it's a good 5 months earlier than the previous so that's something. I have some unpleasant news however, I **_**am**_** going into my second semester of college and the Profs are really hammering us hard with high percentage projects and assignments, so for the next few months I won't really have much time to devote to writing. I will though try to split up the next chapter into sections, that way when I do get the time you won't have to wait another 7 months after that to read it lol!  
So here's my very late Christmas/New Year's gift to you FanFic community, hope it was entertaining and had you saying WTF! a few times. Rest assured, even if it takes me another ten years I haven't abandoned this story and don't ever plan to, there will always be new chapters on the next horizon, they'll just take a while to get here XD. **


	12. Building an Army

**Well everyone, after two long years we've finally pushed our way into the main storyline. Now these chapters should start becoming easier for me to write since most of their settings and action will have already been scripted by Bioware lol! Nah I'm just joking guys, even while in the thick of the story I will continue to try and make this journey just as much about Axel and his crew as it is about Shepard and **_**his**_** crew, that way we get to have the emotional moments and hilariousness of both worlds!  
So without further ado, lets get back on the road! **_(On the road again_** Sing it with me people! **_I can't wait to get on the road again!)_

**P.S. I do have to warn you guys though, for all of you who've been reading this story up until now mainly for the action and the suspense, there's barely any of that in this chapter. This chapter is pretty much all talking, it's a filler chapter meant to set up the more major plot pieces later in the story. However there **_**is**_** still a fair amount of comedy and witty dialogue (at least as best as I could come up with) and there are plenty of moments that offer deeper looks into the rest of the characters and who they are in accordance with this story and reality in particular.**

**Plus there's a nice surprise at the end that really ups the ante for the rest of the chapters ahead, so you'll want to read through everything before you get to it so as to gain the full shock value.**

**And if you're still here and reading this then you can obviously stomach going through huge lines of text without loosing interest, which I hope you'll continue to due throughout the rest of this chapter. **

**Enjoy!**

My back slammed against the deck, causing me to elicit a painful gasp as I slid several feet back across the cockpit before coming to a stop. Polly and a few other Replicators that had crashed around me hissed in a similar manner as the _Corsica_'s motion dampeners restored themselves back to their previous state, causing everyone's semi-weightlessness to disappear.

"Oww," I ground out after a spike of pain wracked my forehead, the cut I had received above my eyebrow from my grappling-hook stunt in the Council Chambers having just re-opened from the force of my harsh landing. Sitting up and wiping away the fresh blood that had already begun to seep out, I glanced up from the floor toward the windshield.

"Wow…" I breathed in awe, looking all around at the spectacle in front of me. The entire inside of the cockpit was lit with a deep flickering purple/blue glow, almost making it feel like the ship was travelling underwater.

Outside was a different story however, for at this very moment a massive endless _Stargate_ Hyperspace tunnel flashed by us, blasting our small Corvette across the farthest reaches of space!

Polly crawled up beside me, also gazing at the scene before letting out a soft whistle of impressment.

"It worked, we're actually flying through Hyperspace. You guys are the BOMB!" I began saying before turning to Polly and declaring the compliment, lifting my arm and extending my hand over to him. Quickly figuring out what the gesture implied, Polly lifted his red/silver leg and hopped up toward my hand, the sharp tip gently meeting with my gloved palm in the best equivalent of a High-Five we could manage. Standing up, I wiped away more blood from my stinging cut before turning around to the others.

"Gentlemen I'm happy to say…" I began announcing joyfully, but right away I broke off as I was struck with confusion.

Alec and Yoda weren't in the room anymore.

Frowning, Polly and I left behind the few Replicators still in the cockpit and began moving down the narrow corridor into the conference table area.

"Oh my," I said once I saw the state of things.

Replicators were dashing back and forth all around the CIC, each of them frantically trying to repair the array of damage that had been done to the ship during the course of our escape. Brief swarms of sparks periodically rained down from frayed electrical cables that had broken out from sections of the ceiling, disappearing as they mingled with a few small fires that were burning from several destroyed control outlets around the room. Jagged pieces of debris covered most of the floor, mixed with the scattered parts of the Iron Man suit that hadn't been secured before our eventful flight.  
Seeing this Polly quickly scrambled into the fray, moving to help Sparky begin gathering up the suit while the other spiders and beetles started recycling all of the debris and reintegrating it back into the rest of the ship. (Hey, Recycle Re-use, tis' the way of the future!)

As they did that, amidst this pandemonium of movement I quickly found Yoda laying on his back on top of the conference table, obviously having been thrown here from down the corridor after the _Corsica_ had jumped into Hyperspace.

"Now how's _that_ for a dramatic exit?" I asked with a grin as I came over to the end of the table and offered a hand to the Jedi. Yoda grunted in effort before accepting it and pulling himself up to his feet, taking a brief moment to brush some metal fragments off his claw torn robes before answering.

"One of the most eventful days in my entire life this has been. Find myself strangely looking forward to more in the journeys ahead, I do," the old Master said before giving a small grin of his own.  
Suddenly a metallic groaning/crashing sound came from the far end of the table, being followed by a loose pile of debris and fragments rising up and toppling over each other, looking like some kind of monster was rising out of the clutter of a junkyard!  
Just then a black gloved hand rose up into view and clamped onto the table's edge, pulling up a cut and bruised looking Alec from underneath the wreckage shortly afterward.

"Oh don't worry, there'll be plenty more moments like this in the coming days," the Guardian grimaced before raising his other hand onto the table, which at the moment was holding a very scratched and beat up Iron Man helmet in its grasp. Turning to the helmet's scarred silver faceplate and lifeless black eyes, Alec smirked before jumping up to a stand, letting hundreds of loose metal fragments fall to the floor with an oddly pleasant jingling sound, and extending his arm out before himself in a dramatic pose.

"Alas poor Stark, I didn't really know him at all Axel," he declared to me in a Shakespearian voice before turning and underhanding the helmet across the table.

"I think the seal got torn apart when things started blowing up," Alec remarked as I caught it and began looking over some of the scratched portions around its open neck area.

"Really? Dammit!" I said with a start, feeling a sharp wave of regret at the prospect of losing the Iron Man suit completely. Off to the side Polly, Sparky, and a few other Replicator spiders had started crawling up onto the table's surface, each of them carrying a dented piece of the suit along with them. As Polly rolled the left hand gauntlet/stabilizer out in front of himself, I placed the helmet upright on the table and slid it over toward the group.

"What's your best guess? Think you can put it back together the way it was?" I asked with a hopeful arching of my eyebrows. Sparky pressed one of his legs against the helmet, lifting it up slightly to look at the severe scratches potted across it's skin. After a few moments of hissing between the various spiders, the pressure from Sparky's leg accidentally tipped the helmet over onto its side, causing the crunch of breaking glass to sound out as the screens in the two eye-sockets shattered. Polly was the one who finally turned to me and gave a small raising of his legs, as if he were trying to imitate the act of shrugging.

"I'll take that as a _maybe_," I said somewhat optimistically to the group. Suddenly I cringed, my hand flashing up and pressing against my stinging cut, the previous movement from my eyebrow arching having just fully re-inflamed it.

"You look like you could use a Band-Aid," Alec remarked with some concern as a small streak of blood seeped out from under my palm and gradually trickled down around the side of my eye socket. I gave a conceding chuckle to that despite the tingling pain, nodding as I used the back of my hand to wipe away as much of it as I could.

"Its not as bad as it looks, there should be plenty of medi-gel for it in the Med-bay," (no shit) I reassured him. But after mentioning that, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Speaking of the Med-bay, what happened to Jango?" I asked to everyone around the table.

"Oh yeah, about that. After you left to go tag Shepard with the Dart, we finally managed to fix Jango's arm and ankle before moving him into the ship's sleeper-pod area just off from the Med-bay. We also made sure a few Replicators built a nice cozy cell around him incase he woke up and decided to go back on his word," Alec explained with a small wince, stretching out his injured limbs before making his body briefly glow silvery-white to heal his wounds.

"Good, I wanted to speak with him before we made any decisions about where to drop him off. Hopefully I can change his mind about leaving all together," I said as I began making my way around the table toward the main bulkhead spanning the back of the CIC.

"I don't know, he was pretty adamant about splitting from us after we made it off the station. In his mind he'll have already kept up his end of the deal, and he'll expect us to hold to ours," Alec said with a shrug, following me across the deck until we both came to the Med-bay's sealed door on the ship's starboard side that Yoda had indicated the last time I had been onboard. Pressing the glowing red pad set up next to the door, I turned to Alec and deliberately cocking my left eyebrow to avoid another wave of pain.

"Aside from the fact that he _slept_ through most of that escape, I really think that if we told him about the imminent danger threatening this galaxy he just might change his mind about leaving us."

"I already sold him that pitch and he outright refused, saying that he didn't know enough about this place to risk his own hyde helping to save it. Besides what do we really need him for anyway? Sure he's great in a fight but he's still just a contract _bounty hunter_, a ruthless mercenary who only cares about his own profit. He'd sooner stab us in the back than remain loyal to the cause as soon as someone waved a larger pay-check in front of him," Alec pointed out somewhat sourly with a nod of his head into the now open Med-Bay.

"While that's all true he's more than just a bounty hunter Alec, he's a _Mandalorian_, and one who once even held the title of _Mand'alor _for a while. He fights for profit now but he didn't start out that way; if I can appeal to his buried sense of honour _and_ provide him with an offer he can't refuse, we'd have one of the greatest Mandalorians ever fighting at our side against the Reapers and the forces of Lord Viraden when they eventually come to make their wars of conquest," I explained in depth to the Guardian, while at the same time trying to think of what kind of offer I could possibly present to Jango that would fully grab his attention.  
Other than the unfounded promise of direct passage back to his home universe (since according to Alec I had to first defeat the Reapers and their long list of Bad-Guy allies before I could even try to manage the feat of opening a portal to another universe on my own) there was nothing I could truly provide that would make Jango jump at the chance to join us on a death defying adventure across three entire games.

What exactly would make a former warrior, a man who now fought only for his own personal gain, be willing to change his mindset and risk his life for the sake of billions?

As I thought on this, Alec's voice soon brought me out of my pondering.

"But that brings us back to my original question. What do we really need him for? Sure he's a Mandalorian, but he isn't from the KOTOR universe; he never fought in any great crusades against galactic armies or took part in noble causes to save entire civilizations. The only noble thing he did while he was Mand'alor was to ensure that he and the rest of the True Mandalorians continued to fight as honourable mercenaries. What exactly do you see in him that could be of vital importance in our quest to stop the impending armada of Space Squids from devouring everyone in this galaxy?" Alec asked me inquisitively, casually folding his arms and mentioning the Reapers with one of his usual analogies. While we both smirked after finding that title somewhat funny, Haxon didn't seem to share our sentiments.

"_Devouring everyone?!"_ the A.I. blurted out, unable to contain his bafflement after hearing the Guardian's words. I was about to say something to belay his fears when Yoda abruptly spoke up, having walked over to the end of the conference table closest to us.

"Much more than a Mandalorian he is. The original template for the creation of the Clone Army, and also the instructor from which each and every Clone Trooper was programed with their advanced training he was," the Jedi began, grunting slightly as he dropped down from the edge of the table to the metal flooring.

"From his skills and military knowledge it was that enabled the Clones to overcome the droid armies of the Galactic Confederacy…" he continued before pausing slightly, his face taking on a subtle look of distant pain.

"And it was also from his elite martial training that gave them the prowess to outmatch even the strongest of Jedi when the Great Purge finally began." Both Alec and I dropped our smirks immediately, the mention of Emperor Palpatine's use of the Clone Army to enact his notorious Order 66 making us feel very uncomfortable. While Alec shifted awkwardly, averting his gaze from Yoda's, I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath.

"I'm sorry Yoda, I wasn't meaning to bring up bad memories. I just thought that if we could…" I began solemnly, now feeling completely inconsiderate at having spoken about this in front of him. But to my surprise Yoda only croaked/chuckled softly and held up a hand to stop me, lightly shaking his head.

"Unneeded your apology is Axel, understand I do. Jango Fett's skills as a warrior invaluable make him, both as a travelling companion and a potential teacher for the army that we will surely need to raise in order to combat the forces of Lord Viraden and his multi-universal Empire, along with whatever manifestations these Reaper creatures intend to use against this galaxy. Besides, long _dead_ Fett was before the Purge; taught them the skills they would later use against us he may have, but the fault of the Sith it was for our demise, not his." I gave a thin smile, feeling a bit relieved that Yoda was onboard with my idea.

But right away Alec turned his head to both of us while raising his hands in a sort of mediating way, his face holding a look of surprise and disbelief after catching on to a tiny little detail that Yoda had just mentioned.

"Waaaait a minute, back that up for a sec. Did you just say 'army'? You're seriously thinking about building _an army _this early in the mission? We only just got off the Citadel five minutes ago, and now you want to go head to head with The Emperor of the Multiverse?" he asked down to the Jedi, his expression never changing.

"Failed to destroy Commander Shepard his plan has, now ever-present Lord Viraden's forces shall be on the roads ahead Alec, ready to strike so that they may finish off he and his crew. If to protect Shepard our goal is so that his destiny may remain mostly unaltered from our interference and from Viraden's future attempts on his life, then confront his warriors at every turn we _must_." A green fist lightly fell into the other with an audible clap for added effect after that last word.

"To accomplish this, patience and cunning to our advantage we must use, as well as an army of our own to match that of his when the time comes for our now inevitable battles to commence across land, and amongst the stars." The wise Jedi Master imparted this knowledge gravely, his final words containing a firm and heavy emphasis on their importance and the danger with which they posed.

I was stunned by this sudden truth. By ourselves we couldn't do much damage against an Empire and the massive Reaper fleet quietly hibernating in Dark Space. If we wanted to have any chance of achieving victory over both of these behemoth enemies, we were indeed going to need an army or a large group of really good people fighting at our flanks.

As I looked a bit deeper into it I realized that there wasn't any real choice in the matter anyway, my actions on the Citadel had inadvertently pushed us down this broad path; by stopping Viraden from succeeding in his plan to destroy Shepard and the crew of the _Normandy_, I had discovered a dangerous new threat that could very well over-shadow that posed by the Reapers. And what made it even worse was that we were the only ones who knew about it. Even the soon to be great Commander Shepard, the prime target of this entire fiasco didn't truly know what was happening.

For the moment we were now the only hope of protecting a small galaxy under threat from damn near all of Science-Fiction itself!

"He's right. It's the only chance we have of winning this now." I stated finally with a slow nod, rubbing my chin absently after having thought on the issue for a long moment.

Alec turned to me and stiffly gestured down to Yoda, his face taking on the expression of someone saying 'Are you fucking crazy?!'  
"An ARMY?! Out of what, fellow criminals and terrorists?! We've barely even started licking our wounds yet…" he demanded while sweeping a hand to indicate all of the damage and rubble strewn about the room, right before getting interrupted by a small explosion of sparks bursting out from a section of exposed wires in the ceiling behind him.  
This was accompanied by a dying robotic sigh that sounded like a person fainting from sheer terror. As that happened, a soot blackened Replicator spider tumbled out from the inside of the exposed paneling, flopping down to the deck in an unconscious heap amongst his brethren. All three of us winced and uttered out a collective pained 'oooh' as we looked upon the series of burns covering the machine's body before returning our attention to the debate.

"Let alone begun preparing to house and maintain a Galactic Fighting Force!" the Guardian finished, picking up from where he left off right away.

"Alec we're talking about a galaxy wide war on two fronts. From what little we know already we're gonna be going up against Jaffa, Sardaukar, Stormtroopers, and who knows what else Viraden's pulled together from all the universes he's conquered. We need something that can counter all of that," I semi-implored to him while quickly listing off the numerous threats by extending a finger for each one on my hand.

However my double remained resolute in his conviction, jumping in with a response almost before I'd even finished.

"Axel I rode against the chariots of Darius III, I was there when the Roman Empire was reaching its peak; I saw the landing of the Great Heathen Army on the shores of England. I know quite well what's required to build a force of the scope you guys are talking about, and I'm telling you now its going to be almost impossible to do while we're being hunted down by the largest government in the ENTIRE GALAXY!"  
I opened my mouth to counter that but immediately Alec raised a hand and gestured to me, still not having finished his point.

"You're a soldier. More then that you're an officer in the Canadian military, one of the most level headed and painfully honest fighting forces on Earth. You know just as well as I do that to create an army of this size and have it work effectively we're going to need: a base of operations, we're going to need chains of supply, we're going to need weapons, vehicles, ships, ammunition, and most importantly of all, _people_. We're going to need soldiers and specialists who are not only willing to work alongside a bunch of wanted criminals but are also willing to die protecting this galaxy from an extra-universal threat."  
As he said this he mirrored my previous finger counting so as to list off all the vital components that we were definitely going to need if we wanted to create a force the size of which Yoda was talking about.

"_And_…they're also going to need to be people who can accept the truth about this threat and where it really comes from, which means we're probably going to need to tell them the truth about where _we_ come from too," Alec added in quickly, pointing to me again before tapping himself on his chest-plate to indicate the both of us.

I kept my expression neutral before slowly cocking my uninjured eyebrow and giving a single deliberate nod.

"I know Alec; all of that does need to happen if we want this to work, and that's exactly what we're gonna do."

Immediately I turned my head to the rest of the crew, projecting my voice more clearly so that everyone could hear.

"We're going to find a base to work out of, we're going to forge alliances, stockpile supplies, and we're going to muster an army of men and women into a fighting force capable of matching Viraden's armies gun for gun. We're going to make it happen, all of us."

My calm but firm words caught everyone except Yoda by surprise, causing the entire Replicator horde to abruptly stop whatever they were doing and turn to look at me. Alec was struck speechless, his eyes widening and his face scrunching up into a frown of bewilderment.

"But…" he tried saying, only to be cut off as I turned back to him with a raised hand and a few agreeing nods.

"You're right, you're absolutely right, if it were just the Reapers we were dealing with like we had originally thought then yes I would say that this is a horribly bad idea. But they aren't anymore, so our plan has to change."

Alec's head reared back slightly, unable to process the fact that I was genuinely considering this insane plan.

"You can't be serious. We're already going to have our hands tied just trying to keep track of Shepard to make sure Viraden doesn't get the drop on him. We won't stand a chance if we try to take on both him _and_ the Reapers at the same time."

I could only empathize with my Guardian's logic, the risk of us all getting killed simply by _trying_ to overcome these two giants was already at the forefront of my mind this very second, but it could no longer be helped. Our hand had being forced down this road; there was no turning back now. As Yoda would say "Do, or do not. There is no try." We could either abandon everything and wait for Viraden to conquer the Mass Effect Galaxy, or we could take a stand and fight him on behalf of Shepard while at the same time aiding the Commander with our knowledge and otherworldly talents when he and the others finally faced off against the Reapers. Whichever path we chose, there would be no room for trying. We were either going to be committed to the mission, or we were not, but there would be no trying.

"We don't have a choice anymore, the decision was made for us the moment he tried to kill Garrus. We need to stop Viraden and the Reapers, plain and simple. And to do that we need an army," I stated to him solemnly with a hopeless shrug and a shake of my head.

Alec tried to interject again, but before he could make a sound I cut him off with a stern point of my finger, which was followed by an even harsher tone.

"Ah! We were going to have to deal with the Reapers anyway! Either by helping Shepard from behind the scenes, or joining him on the _Normandy_, or even outright abandoning him to his fate, we were _still_ going to have to deal with both them and their allies one way or another, and we _still_ do regardless of the choice we make here!"

Everyone was watching me intently, awaiting my next words; even Yoda's usually grim expression was caught up in an odd look of attention and curiousity. After slowly looking around at each of them, silently stressing to them the gravity of what I was saying, I turned back to the Guardian.

"Now there's another threat that we _have_ to face, one that's going to easily, no _hilariously_, overwhelm Shepard and the other races when they try to confront the Reapers. And that's definitely going to happen if we let it."

In response to this Alec turned and addressed all of us with a weak shrug.

"Guys I understand the need for it, but take it from one who's been through this sort of thing before, it wouldn't be ready in time, it would never be big enough…"

Before he could finish I reached up and grabbed him firmly by the shoulder, in a trusting brotherly sort of way.

"Even if it isn't, we can't just ignore the threat and hope that Shepard still has enough gas to rebound from the Reapers and then take on an Empire. This is what Yoda's saying Alec, without us and the force that we can build with _our_ knowledge and _our_ talents they aren't going to stand a chance. If Viraden had managed to kill Shepard and the others back at the Citadel, all he'd have to do now is wait for Saren to open the floodgates and let the monsters in, so that when the war started he would've just had to watch both sides wear each other down and then come in and claim victory for himself. He'd have destroyed the Reapers with his forces and whatever powers he possess, and then just turned around and enslaved whatever was left of the surviving races."

Alec blinked after I laid this new information on him, staring at me for a moment before shifting his gaze away from mine slightly, the faded look to his eyes showing that he was thinking it over.

As he did this I turned back to the crew and walked over toward the end of the conference table, passing by Yoda before turning around on my heel and standing amidst the horde that was starting to gather around me.

"It was only because of _us_, because of _our_ involvement, _our_ interference that he was stopped. Without the Replicators I would never have gotten to Michel's clinic in time to save Garrus," I said to Alec and Yoda before panning my head around to everyone, jabbing a finger down towards the floor to firmly indicate all of us.

"Without _you,_ the Replicators would never have come up with the idea to build the Iron Man suit in the first place," I continued, this time speaking directly to Alec with another hand gesture towards him.

"_We_ are all that stands between the people of this galaxy and Viraden's invasion. We are Shepard's guardians, and we are going to aid him in whatever non-destiny altering ways we can while shielding him from Viraden's attacks. When the Reapers come, Shepard will need to use everything he has, bring everything he's got to the fight. And we need to be there to fight alongside him and every other race that joins him, to send both the Reapers and Lord Viraden back into the dark pits from whence they came!"

At this very moment something strange happened to me. Almost by some other force, as I spoke these words my voice began to deepen and boom throughout the room like the voice of a Norse god. And just as strangely, as I made the final declaration, I clenched my fist and raised it high into the air.

Suddenly, as if on its own, the ring lit up and shot out a blinding ray of silver light in every direction, bathing the entire room in its radiance and dispelling every shadow around us, fueling itself on my new sense of purpose and pure determination!

All of the Replicators gave out a squawk of surprise as the beams of silver hit them, causing many to trip and fall over each other as they all staggered backwards uncontrollably. Even Yoda gasped and took a step back, his mouth hanging open slightly from the spectacle I was causing.

The only one who stood his ground was Alec, whose widened eyes were gleaming with a profound sense of wonder as he stared at me, his mouth half formed into a crooked toothy smile.

"You _are_ the Ring Bearer…" he breathed in awe, his smiley grin only widening even further.

I could barely believe what I was doing, it was almost as if the ring were telling my body what the best course of action would be before I actually did, guiding me through my movements and words with just feelings and sensations alone. I hadn't actually known what the ring would do when I lifted it up and drew upon its power like that, and yet at the same time I did. I wasn't being forced to do anything, it just felt like the right thing to do at the time. And even now, as I returned Alec's smile and looked around at the crew, at my friends and comrades, I already knew what I had to say.

"With the Replicators abilities," I said, turning to look down upon Polly, who was looking up at me with the same kind of divine fascination that all of his brethren were at the moment.

"With the Force." I turned to my other side to look down at our Jedi Master. At this point he had recomposed himself from his initial reaction, but was still staring up at me with a wide thin smile and an unmistakable look of pride upon his wrinkled face.

Finally I turned back to Alec, my Guardian and right hand man. Bringing my own right hand down until it was level with my chest I walked back over toward him, the blinding silver from the ring remaining ever present even as I stopped in front of him, its radiance illuminating the undersides of our faces.

"And with our knowledge combined as one, we can do this Alec. We can assemble an army capable of taking them both on, we can help Shepard turn the Reapers into floating heaps of scrap! We can save this universe and drive Viraden so far away from here that he'll never dare threaten it again!"

The almost intoxicating feeling that had begun to course through my veins made my final words boom out almost twice as powerfully as they had before. And as I said them I offered my raised hand towards Alec, the blinding light fading away in an instant and allowing us both to see each other clearly again.

I let out a laboured breath, the exhilarating feeling of the power I had just experience leaving me in a rush.

It took me a brief moment to regain myself before I spoke to Alec, my voice having now returned to normal.

"And then…we can go home."

Alec's eyes, which had been staring down at my offered hand, immediately flicked up to meet mine again as soon as I mentioned our own universe, the very universe that we were trying to get back to by completing this quest.

"Are you with me on this one Alec? I can't do this without you," I said to him, my words filled with all the honesty and genuine feeling I had ever put into them.

There was a very short pause before Alec's usual gung-ho, good-natured self sprang to life in another wide and equally genuine smile right before he grasped my hand firmly in his in a strong Bro-Grip.

"What? You were afraid I was gonna let you guys have all the fun?"

Right away we both burst out laughing, pulling each other into a tight hug.

"He's onboard!" I called back to everyone. A mighty chorus of hisses and cries rose up from the Replicators as they cheered in response to this outcome, many of them waving or pumping the air with their pincer legs in celebration. As we both broke away from the other I could hear Yoda chuckling happily amongst the hissing before it quickly died down and the horde began to scatter, all of them returning to whatever jobs they had been doing before this epic moment.

(Alright fun's over, back to work!)

"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. First we get saddled with keeping Shepard's crew safe from behind the scenes, now we're going on to raising armies to fight against merciless dictators, _and_ the Reapers at the same time."

Alec shook his head at this with a deep breath of defeat, shrugging to himself before looking between Yoda and I.

"Its seems gents, that we are _really_ getting our work cut out for us on this trip."

I gave another smile, proud at having convinced my Guardian into joining us in our insane new scheme.  
Both of us soon began chuckling as we found the morbid fact of Alec's last statement to be uplifting in a weird way, but then I suddenly remembered back to the beginning of this entire debate.

My proposal to have Jango join us had been the spark that had formed the idea to build our own galactic army. Now as I thought more on it, on Yoda's mentioning of Jango having been killed just before the Clone Wars, I suddenly got an uneasy feeling about this little alliance I was going for.

"Jango worked with us out of necessity because we were all trying to get off the Citadel. Now that we _are_ off, the only thing I'm worried about at this point is him taking issue with working full-time alongside a Jedi, since it was Mace Windu that kind of…you know…" I began to everyone, looking over at Alec and making a quick slicing gesture across my neck with my thumb, indicating the moment in _Attack of the Clones_ when the purple saber wielding Jedi had decapitated the bounty hunter in the gladiatorial arena on Geonosis. But to my surprise Alec suddenly scoffed and waved off my words.

"Actually I wouldn't worry about that too much, considering Jango himself said he didn't really care about the Jedi, mentioning that he truly didn't trust the Sith while he was working for them."

A frown of confusion formed on my face as I heard this, causing me to shoot a look over at an equally surprised Yoda.

"What?" I pretty much stated to Alec in that same manner. Right away he threw up his hands with a shrug and nodded his head quickly, looking between both of us and even a few of the Replicators that continued to scurry back and forth around the room.

"I know right?! That's pretty much what I said! According to him he actually despises the Sith because of all the damage they've brought upon the Mandalorian people throughout their long history together." I absently shook my head, still just as confused as ever by this new information.

"That doesn't make sense; if that's how he always felt about it why would he even consider working for them in the first place?" I asked, scratching my jaw thoughtfully as I processed this notion.

"Well just like you'd expect it was all about the profit their jobs offered, along with the perks he got from them. While he received his whopping paycheck, he also got to have his pick of weapons, ships, armours, yadda yadda yadda," Alec began explaining while both the Master and I listened intently, soon being joined by Polly and Sparky as the two Replicators moved over and perched themselves on the edge of the conference table so as to hear what was being said.

"But what really got him hooked was when they granted his request to have Boba created, an unaltered clone for himself by which he could teach and mold as his own son. After that Count Dooku and the rest of the Confederacy pretty much had him on their own private leash, indebted to remain as their right hand man until the…the…uhh Axel? Axel, you still with me?" Alec continued before breaking off after seeing my current reaction.

My eyes were wide; looking off into whatever negative space was behind the Guardian. The expression on my face had changed from that of confusion to a clear look of inspiration.

"Axel, is everything working properl…" Alec began asking in a deliberately slow voice, waving a hand in front of my face to get my attention. But immediately I snapped my fingers, a wide grin flashing into existence as my gaze met with his again.

"THAT'S IT!" I nearly exclaimed to everyone.

The startled Guardian could only shake his head in bewilderment with a blank look on his face.  
"Huh…" he barely managed to blurt out before I reached up and clapped him firmly on the shoulder.

"Alec, you're a genius!" I declared to him, my toothy grin never leaving as I immediately cocked my right eyebrow high up. And just as immediately my forehead was wracked by a fresh wave of pain from my bleeding cut, causing me to cringe again and momentarily wedge my eyes shut.

"Oww…ow, ow!" I complained to myself as I pressed the tips of my fingers against it, quickly turning away from the room and moving into the Med-bay in desperate search of the miracle medi-gel that would hopefully stitch my head back together.

While I did this Alec's stupefied look had now turned into one of proud acknowledgement; an almost obnoxious grin spreading across his face as he refolded his arms and leaned against the wall next to the door.

"Why thank you, I like to think I walk the line between awesome and genius every moment of my life. But what exactly did I…" he began after me in an oddly smooth sophisticated voice, before suddenly getting cut off as the Med-bay's door let out a click and slid closed right in front of him.

The Guardian's smile dropped at this rude interruption, making him frown and turn to Yoda and the Replicators with a confused look.

"What did I say?" he asked them, jabbing a thumb at the closed door. The Replicators merely looked at each other and raised their legs in another imitation of shrugging before returning to their repair work. Yoda on the other hand only chuckled deeply in his old voice before moving amidst the horde of machines to see if he could help in any way.

"Really guys, what did I say?" the Guardian asked seriously as he moved after them.

* * *

"So_ what exactly makes Alec a genius?"_ Haxon asked after the doors had sealed themselves behind me, finally deciding to speak for the first time since his exclamation about the Reapers devouring people.

It didn't occur to me at the time, but Haxon could actually be a really quiet person when he wanted to be, especially when really important debates or meetings were happening. Instead of stating his opinion or interjecting in some way, he always chose to simply stay silent and listen carefully. (I.E. The interrogation of Kurath, the reunion with Jarrod, and now with the issue concerning the building of a galactic army)

It was an endearing trait to his character, but it was also a bit unnerving in some ways. We never heard what his thoughts or feelings on the subject were, and he could hear everything that was said during any conversations I had while I wore my Spectre armour, meaning no interactions I might have with anyone in the future could really stay private as long as I had it with me.

I cringed again, pressing my fingers even harder against my cut to keep more blood from trickling out.

"You'll find out in a minute, but right now I would love to know where exactly the damn medi-gel is," I answered him through gritted teeth, the pain being worse then I realized as I took a look around the room. The _Corsica_'s Med-bay looked almost exactly like the one used by Dr. Chakwas on the _Normandy-SR1_, with the minor change of it being on the right side of the ship rather than the left. The bay had several medical beds spaced out along the wall to my left, with numerous bright lights hanging above each while the rest of the room remained shrouded in a pleasantly dim lighting.

"_There is a medi-gel dispenser on the wall directly two meters to your left,"_ Haxon directed, somewhat in an annoyed manner, after it became obvious I had no idea where to find what I was looking for.  
Turning in that direction, I slightly reared back in surprise once I saw the large red and white Alliance medical dispensing machine built into the wall pretty much right beside me, looking exactly like the hundreds of other machines of its kind I had encountered during the several times I had played Mass Effect.

"Ah…right then," I voiced, more awkwardly than I wanted to, as I raised my left arm and activated my Savant-X.  
Luckily from the Mind Mending I had done with the omni-tool back in Irwin's store, I already knew what was needed to change the desired medi-gel into its application form and transfer it over to the tool itself. Raising my glowing hologram covered forearm to the main sensor built into the dispenser, I begrudgingly brought my right hand away from my stinging cut to the keyboard and tapped in a command that would activate it.

A series of mechanical noises suddenly emanated from the machine, along with a small bubbling sound coming from several tubes loaded with the thick translucent gel visibly built into its sides. After that happened, a white scanning field hummed into existence, reaching out from the sensor and digitally connecting with the inner makings of my omni-tool. The tubes of gel soon began emptying, their contents continuously draining down into the machine until the dispenser had sucked them dry. While that was happening the scanning field fluctuated and hummed even louder, causing a small screen to activate above my omni-tool's keyboard. Displayed on its surface were three red medi-gel indicators, all of which were quickly flickering and turning green from the converted medi-gel being downloaded into them. Once the process was complete a small chime rang out from the dispenser before the scanner field and the machine itself shut down, followed by a small icon appearing on my screen that showed the transference was finished.

"Well, I guess its time for my first taste of the Buckley's of the future," I said with a slight chuckle, one that I came to regret as the movement from it made my cut flare up once again. Rotating my arm so that the underside of the omni-tool was facing up, I activated a small interface built next to the underside of my wrist. After the needed mechanics sprang to life across the hologram's orange surface, I pressed a final button that would disperse one of the three new medi-gel applications throughout my body, and hopefully heal this damn wound before it got any worse.

Right away, just like it would in the game, a humming yellow field flashed out from my omni-tool, enveloping and racing up and down my body for a brief moment before vanishing with a humming beep.

"Whoa…WHOA!" I suddenly found myself saying as a very strange feeling began to wash over me. My right hand rose up to my forehead, my fingers brushing over my bleeding cut. But to my surprise I quickly felt the cut disappearing, the skin and flesh that had been damaged smoothly sealing up within seconds. And it wasn't just my eyebrow cut, I could feel the same strange sensation affecting the goose-egg I had received to the back of my head after the crash in Darren's hover-taxi, as well as the many numb bruises I still had covering most of my body from the near death encounters the group and I had experienced over the last few hours.  
After a few seconds the sensation eventually vanished, but the overly pleasant feeling of having my injuries instantly healed had me laughing in astonishment and fervently patting myself down to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

"_I must say, that was one of the more dramatic reactions I've seen from a first timer using medi-gel,"_ Haxon remarked in an amused voice after I'd calmed down.

"Hey give me a break, we don't have medi-gel in my universe," I countered, still smiling somewhat as I began flexing my arms and legs, relieved at being able to use them again without the annoying sting of bruised muscles flaring up every second.

"_That fact actually brings us to the questions that have been bothering me for the last hour. Now that we have escaped the Citadel and are no longer being pursued by hostile forces, I expect to receive your promised explanation for how both you and Alec seem to know almost every turn of events that is going to happen in the future. I believe I may already know the answer to this mystery from what information I have picked up so far, but my conclusions are becoming more and more far fetched with each new piece I attain. I would prefer to hear the honest truth straight from you."  
_Haxon's words caused me to stiffen slightly, a small wave of panic shooting through me at the mention of my promise to explain everything I knew from the Mass Effect game. But I couldn't tell him quite yet; there were still a few more things I had to do first, a few more pieces that I had to bring over to our side in this inter-universal game of chess.

"And you will Haxon, I'm going to explain everything to you in the next few minutes. But before I do, I first need to at least try and convince Jango to join us, since the answers to your questions are also going to answer a few of _his_ as well," I responded carefully, lightly rubbing my healed eyebrow while turning to look around the rest of the area.  
From what I remembered of Chakwas's Med-bay in the game, there would be a large blue lit steel door built into the far back of the room that would lead into her office, the very one that Liara T'Soni would take up residence in when she joined Shepard's crew. As I looked ahead, I found that the same design had been incorporated into the _Corsica_'s Med-bay, but with one small difference. While I noticed this identical office door far in front of me, I also noticed another door built into the wall on my right, one that would most likely lead to the sleeper-pod area where Alec had dumped Jango.

"_Yes I imagine so, seeing as how he and Yoda are some of the most pivotal characters from the universe of the Star Wars Sagas, just as the Replicators were one of the main villains in the Stargate universe. They will undoubtedly want to know exactly how they have been brought from a world of complete fiction into that of…the real world,"_ Haxon said slowly and in a deliberate voice, as if he were waiting for me to give away something.

'_He knows. He already knows the truth and now he's just playing with me to see if I try lying to him or not.' _

Thinking on this I decided not to respond right away, instead choosing to quickly walk across the Med-bay to this other door and tap its glowing red lock-pad. The pad changed green and the door slid apart, allowing me to step into a short shiny steel hallway. The partially treaded bottoms of my combat boots clicked loudly on the polished flooring as I began making my way down the blue-lit corridor (Seriously, what is it with the Alliance and blue?!) toward another door built directly into the center of the left wall. As I walked, I looked up ahead to see a _third_ door covering the far end, one which most likely led into whatever room was on the port side of the ship opposite to the Med-bay.

This succeeded in making this entire area look almost identical to the corridor that would lead into the main conference room on the _Normandy SR-2_, the very room in which Shepard would always use to speak directly with the Illusive Man after completing a main mission in ME 2.

Within just a few seconds I came to a stop in front of this middle door, taking a moment to look across its shiny surface before reaching for its lock-pad.

"_However I imagine it would be even harder telling them that they've been pulled from the reality of a movie and brought into that of, shall we say…a video game."_

This time instead of stiffening I outright froze where I was, my hand hovering only an inch above the surface of the lock-pad. My eyes remained wide for a moment before a small ironic smile formed at the corner of my mouth. I let out a short chuckle as I pulled my arm back and brought my full attention to the A.I.

"You _do_ know…" I stated back to him rhetorically, my voice filled with a slight feeling of humour at the way my big secret was coming out.

"_As I said I have my theories but this one seems to fit all of the data I have acquired in the most logical manner, despite however illogical the conclusion is." _

"Then I won't lie to you Haxon, your theory isn't wrong," I said to him flatly, remaining emotionless on the outside as I said it but cringing internally while I awaited his response.

There was a pause of silence before Haxon spoke.

"_How? How is it possible?"_ he asked, sounding more confused then disbelieving. I could image after what we'd been through today, even an A.I. would be willing to believe anything that could make sense of all this.

"I have no idea how, but you're looking at _why_ this is all happening right now," I answered, raising my right hand and taking a moment to gaze upon the silver of the band on my finger through the holes in my glove.

"You saw how it brought the Replicators here. Its been doing similar things just like that so as to test my ability to wield it through trials-by-fire, first by dropping Alec and I off in the universe of a video game, bringing us to a galaxy that's already about to suffer the most devastating conflict its ever known, and then by summoning creatures and enemies from my different memories to try and kill us."

"_And you have no control over what it will summon next? Or when?" _

Dropping my hand, I shook my head.

"No," I answered bitterly, thinking back on all of the people who had been injured or killed by the ring's abilities simply because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"_So the ring on your finger has the power to make things from nothing. It was able to extract knowledge from your mind and pull you into a completely different universe, into _my_ universe, which in your own is nothing more than a fictional entertainment?"_ Haxon asked, surprisingly without any anger or incredulous inflection put into his voice. So far he was taking this pretty well.

"Yes, that's exactly what happened. But its not fictional anymore, all of this is real now. It may have been nothing more than science fiction to me back in my world, but now the ring has made all of this tangible. To both Alec and I it made all of this alive," I said slowly before looking all around myself at the shiny blue corridor.

"Without my consent, the ring used its power to reach into my memories and summon Jango here, into this new reality, the same way it did with Jarrod. It turned fictional characters that I had only seen or read about in movies and books…and video games…and turned them into living breathing people," I affirmed with a stiff nod before reaching out and lightly tapping the door's lock-pad.

"_Wait! If all of this is, or _was_ a video game, then you truly do know the path of its timeline! You and Alec really do know the events of the future! What's will happen next? What will become of Shepard and his hunt for Saren?!"_ the A.I. suddenly asked, his recent acceptance of the truth now starting to make him very anxious about the journey ahead.

"With Viraden complicating matters I really don't know for sure what's going to happen now, but I _swear_ on my honour Haxon that I will tell you everything that I can. All I'm asking is that you trust me and be patient for just a few more minutes, the truth and the explanation for our knowledge of this universe is one that Jango and Yoda also need to hear…as well as a…a few other people," I interrupted him as the door slid apart in front of me, slightly hesitating once I uttered the final part concerning the other potential allies that had suddenly begun to develop in my mind.

"_What other people?"_ Haxon asked, my sudden mentioning catching him off-guard. Stepping inside, I took a look around myself before answering.

"You'll see soon enough. They're individuals that'll definitely need the same kind of in depth discussion that you and the others will," I answered as I began to slowly walk deeper into the room, keeping my eyes peeled for Jango. The A.I. was quiet for a moment before responding in a more normal tone, obviously having reared in his emotions after accepting my mind-altering revelation about his existence.

"_Very well, I've trusted you this far and you haven't done wrong by me yet. I suppose I can wait for a few more minutes."_ I gave a thin smile at that, feeling mildly relieved at Haxon's continuing trust in me, despite having pretty much told him the entire truth already.

The sleeper-pod area was a long rectangular room stretching down toward the aft of the ship, while being a good twenty feet wide from wall to wall. Along with the usual deep blue glow lighting up the surrounding space, nine soft yellow lights shone down from the ceiling, casting gentle cones of illumination on nine corresponding sleeper-pods attached to mechanical arms spaced down either side. A narrow grated aisle-way ran down the length of the room in-between the pods with white lights shining up from underneath it, ending at a door built into the far back wall.

Taking a mental note to check out what was behind that door some time later, I made my way over to the pods and stepped onto the glowing aisle-way. After slowly advancing several feet down its length, I finally found what I was looking for.  
Several Replicator spiders and beetles that had been left in here turned and hissed a greeting to me as I stepped into view, each of them moving away from the large cage they had constructed. The cell itself was only about six feet wide by nine feet long, fitting snuggly in-between two of the pods. Built into the left wall of the room and connected into the ceiling overhead, two other solid walls extended outward towards me with several thick bars covering the cell's front end. All of this was built using a familiar pattern of complex interconnecting blocks, showing that a number of Replicators had decided to break down their bodies in order to the create the bounty hunter's temporary living quarters.

After a moment of examining everything I stepped toward the Replicators and their construction, moving until I stopped just less then a foot away from the bars. With a quick glance I looked over to my left to an area just off from the side of cell, taking notice of Jango's T-visored helmet, jetpack, gauntlets, gloves, and an assortment of other pieces of armour lying in an orderly pile out of arms reach, probably having been just recently arranged like that after our jarring escape.

Turning away from them, I peered through the bars into the small area itself.

Jango was lazily slumped back against the far wall with his arms lying loosely at his sides, still unconscious but breathing normally. Because his helmet and most of his armour had been removed, the Mandalorian now lay clothed in only his dark blue/purple and black body suit along with his heavily treaded combat boots. His hands and face were exposed, once again showing his features in the striking likeness of Temuera Morrison. On the right side of his head, a small purple coloured bruise had formed from the area where Chellick's concussive sniper shot had struck him.  
For a moment I just watched, mentally running through everything I knew that might be useful in persuading him. After finally deciding on a plan of action, I raised my hand and knocked on one of the bars.

Twice the knuckle of my index finger rapped against the cell, giving out a small but noticeable ringing sound. However the sleeping bounty hunter didn't stir from his slumber. Clenching my fingers into a fist, I knocked on the bar with all of my knuckles this time. But once again there was no response from Jango. Frowning in annoyance, I slammed the meatier portion on the bottom of my fist several times against the bars, causing a much louder thudding sound to ring out. This made Jango twitch slightly, his brow frowning and his eyelids slightly rising for a moment before closing. Despite his strong stamina and natural Mandalorian fortitude, whatever damage Chellick's round had done was enough to keep him from regaining consciousness.  
My frown turned into a scowl of frustration at this lack of attentiveness from him.

"_He may have a concussion you know,"_ Haxon suggested.

"Maybe, but he's not the kind of man to get put down forever by a single crack to the head," I countered, right before drawing back my foot and sending the tip of the steel-toe built into my boot slamming against one of the bars!

A loud metallic clang shot throughout the room the moment the two materials connected.  
"EH!" I shouted at him over the noise.

Jango jerked awake with a short yell, his eyes snapping open in a flash.

"Rise and shine soldier!" I continued yelling at him in a stereotypical drill-sergeant's voice.

"Ahrg!" Jango suddenly cried out to my surprise, his right hand flashing up and pressing against the bruise on his head. Sitting up but then clumsily falling over onto his right side, he continued to cringe in extreme pain afterward while massaging his head ever so tenderly!

"_That was a rather unexpected wake-up,"_ Haxon commented as Jango began breathing heavily, rolling over onto his back and looking up at the ceiling with the ball of his hand rubbing tighter against his said bruise.

"Keep your voice down. Oww dammit," Jango growled in agony, closing his eyes and absently gesturing in my direction with his left hand.

Suddenly the realization of what he was doing struck him, making him jerk open his eyes again and bolt upright into a sitting position. Taking the moment to flex his previously broken arm in and out several times to ensure it was working properly, the Mandalorian cocked an eyebrow and glanced down at his right ankle. After testing it with a few flexing rotations, he grunted in effort before reaching out with his mended arm and grabbing onto the far wall, pulling himself up to a cautious stand. Taking a moment to gingerly press his full weight onto his mended limb, the bounty hunter began slowly moving back and forth within his confined space.

While rotating his left arm several times, Jango grimaced in discomfort and brought his right hand up to rub the bridge of his nose, the throbbing pain from his bruise causing a headache worthy of legend to dance within his brain.

"Sleep well?" I asked with my own cocked eyebrow. Jango cast a deliberate glare over at me before closing his eyes and frowning as he pinched his nose even harder.

"Aside from feeling like I've just woken up from an all night _Kri'gee_ binge, yeah I slept pretty good," he shot back sarcastically before taking a look at his shoulder one last time.  
"However it is nice to see _most_ of my injuries were able to get patched up." I semi-nodded in agreement with that, my gaze briefly resting on his bruise.

"You actually have Yoda to thank for putting you back together," I added in with a nod to his leg and shoulder. Jango scoffed in surprise, his hand now moving up to rub his forehead.  
"That's a strange feeling, owing gratitude to a Jedi, considering it was them I was fighting against back in the arenas of Geonosis before I found myself on the Citadel," he began before dropping his hand and turning to face me directly.  
I fought to keep my eyes from widening at this new information.

Jango must have been only seconds away from getting his head cut off by Samuel L. Jackson before the ring had pulled him into the Mass Effect universe!

"You don't say," I stated in the best casual voice I could fake, saying this after forcing out a short awkward cough.

"But then again you have put me in a cell, so I guess that gratitude might be a bit misplaced," he posed to me in a neutral voice, ignoring my statement before taking a step closer to the bars and gesturing to the walls surrounding him.

"This was Alec's idea, not mine. I wasn't here at the time so I had no say in the matter," I explained with a shrug and a shake of my head.  
"Uh huh," Jango uttered, unconvinced, as he came right up to the bars and leaned against them with one arm raised above his head. Several of the Replicator spiders near my feet hissed lowly up from the floor, their lines of sight directed harshly at the bounty hunter, as if they were warning me to be careful around him.

We were now standing with less than a foot between one another, staring coldly into each other's eyes, both of us gauging the other for their sense of character. With the distance between us and the spacing of the cell's bars, if Jango wanted to lunge out his arm and grab me by the neck he'd be more then able to. But he didn't, we merely continued to stare at each other until the Mandalorian cocked his left eyebrow and cast a glance down at the tense group of insects 'glaring' at him.

"You pick these up while I was out?" he asked to me with a nod down to the group, the tone in his voice indicating he already knew the answer and had only asked the question to move along the conversation. I nodded back to him.

"They're called Replicators, they're a bunch of new allies that have agreed to help us on the mission the crew and I are about to embark on."  
Jango didn't look at me, just fractionally arching his mouth and nodding again in acknowledgement, his gaze now settled on the floor as if he were quickly going through several thoughts in his mind.

"I'm in a cell but you're not, so we haven't been captured. We're currently not being shot at anymore, and judging from the steady vibrations running beneath us I'd say we're onboard a vessel built with engines large enough to withstand the strain of interstellar travel." I blinked in impressment and arched my eyebrows slightly as Jango looked up at me, a small smirk forming at the corner of his mouth.

"That leads me to the conclusion that we've escaped the Citadel and are now on-route to wherever it is this journey of yours is taking you next. How am I doing?" A smirk of my own came to my face, but this one was one of astonishment.

"On the money so far," I answered.

"But as for why you're here, I've come to _two_ conclusions. You're either going to open this cage and drop me off on a planet of my choosing. Or you've come to see if you can persuade me into joining your little gang for the duration of whatever this venture of yours is." I nodded again, feeling a bit relieved that we had already managed to skip through most of the explaining I had feared I would have to walk him through once he'd woken up.

"That second one about sums it up," I answered cheerily with another nod and a wide grin. Right away however Jango's smirk vanished and his face dropped into a cold neutral expression.

"Then I can save you the trouble. The answer is _no_," he stated before turning away from me and moving toward the cell's far wall, deliberately stretching out both his arms widely.

As you would expect, an immediate frown of confusion formed on my brow.

"Just like that? You haven't even heard me out." Jango turned and placed a hand on one of the Replicator walls, dropping his head and taking a short step back to stretch out his neck and leg muscles.

"I don't need to, Alec already tried to sell me the same proposal. Lend my skills to help save this galaxy from an armada of genocidal robots, take part in a mission to save countless lives from impending destruction. That's not the type of contract I'm used to taking, and I have no intention of changing that track record now," the bounty hunter stated back to me without raising his head.

My frown deepened even further, making me cock my head and lean forward against the bars with one arm raised above me similar to the way he had been just a second ago.

"Why? Jango, trillions of innocent people are at risk. Your skills as a bounty hunter and a Mandalorian would be of huge benefit to them. If we succeeded you'd be hailed as a hero rather than a villain, while at the same time fighting in the greatest conflict this galaxy has ever seen," I imparted to him, keeping a constant tab within my mind on the heavy emphasis Mandalorian culture placed upon strength and glory on the battlefield. But Jango merely scoffed and shook his head, straightening up after another moment of stretching before turning back to me with a shrug

"I'm not from this universe, I have no place in it. I don't know enough about the people here, or _anything_ here for that matter, to bother risking my neck. Its better to remain outside the equation when I was never in it to begin with, my involvement would only complicate things." I gave my own shrug, glancing around the bars for a moment while absently sweeping my left hand in a circle to indicate our surroundings.

"The events in this universe have already been complicated enough by other outside sources, your involvement would likely help balance out future events for the better. And besides, you usually fight for profit Jango, if you were to help us save this galaxy I can guaranty the rewards would be so great you'd be able to buy yourself a planet or two," I added in casually, deciding to change tactics and see if his love for money would be the deciding factor in winning him over to our side. This route certainly wouldn't guaranty his true loyalty, but if you were going to have a mercenary on your team in the first place you might as well ensure he stayed on it by providing him with an offer few could match or outbid.  
But to my surprise he merely cocked an un-amused eyebrow, as if having caught on to my ploy right away, before he folded his arms and leaned back against the far wall facing me.

"What good would all the money in this place be if I'm not alive to spend it? I don't care how many credits I could milk out of this, all I want is to return to my universe and my…" Jango began, before slowing down and then stopping in mid-sentence, as if internally hesitating to say what else was on his mind. But despite carefully masking his emotions behind his cold scarred exterior, I could use logical reasoning just as well as he could, having already deduced what he was talking about simply from the tone in his voice and the way he was turning down everything I was throwing at him, even the prospect of almost unlimited wealth.

"And your son, Boba," I finished for him immediately, nodding in his direction with a small knowing expression.

Jango's nostrils flared slightly and he gave a small sneer before turning his head to avert his gaze from mine. I smirked again, knowing that I had just scored one for my side; now I had to push the advantage.

"I can't give you passage back to your universe until this journey is complete, only then will I have mastered the abilities needed to do that. If you help us see this thing through to the end, I promise you I will use all my power to send you home." Despite my words Jango shook his head immediately while unfolding his arms and pushing himself off the wall, taking several steps back toward the bars as he did.

"Not good enough. I need solid assurances before I can trust you, not maybes and uncertain promises," he stated coldly before turning away from me again. The frown that had been on my face was now replaced with a scowl of irritation and utter disbelief.

What exactly would it take to catch this guy's attention?

The galaxy was on the verge of Armageddon and yet he was still choosing to completely turn a blind eye to it!

The fact that he was doing this deliberately, despite all the potential rewards I was offering, only infuriated me even more and made me slam the side of my fist against the bars in frustration.

"What happened to you? You once had honour, you use to fight for an ideal, you were once Mand'alor!" I barked at him. The mention of his former title seemed to hit a nerve, for it made Jango stiffen and spin around with a wide-eyed scowl of anger laced with alarm on his face.

"How do you know that? How do you know so much about me? Who _are_ you?!" he demanded viciously, storming up toward the bars until we were only a few inches away from each other, our scowling eyes locked together.

"_Join me_, fight with us, and I'll tell you the whole damn story!" I said back to him fiercely, jerking my head closer to the bars and clenching my fists tightly, hoping with every fiber of my being that he would finally see reason.

There was a moment of silence before another sneer came to him, this time mixed with an underlying look of amusement at my reactions.

"No," the Mandalorian said flatly with a simple shake of his head, ending with him turning away from me_ again!_ (How rude!)

My jaw dropped at this anti-climatic decision and I threw my hands up in bewilderment, blowing out a harsh breath as I turned my back on him also and walked a few steps away from the cell. I closed my eyes and brought my hand up to massage my forehead, sighing in further frustration.

"_Perhaps you were wrong about Jango, we don't seem to have anything capable of catching his interest,"_ Haxon whispered in my ear to keep the bounty hunter from hearing.  
Suddenly my eyes widened and I snapped my head up away from my hand, an idea having just occurred to me.

"No. I've got one more thing I can put into play," I muttered under my breath before spinning around and returning to the bars. I hesitated, carefully pondering what Fett's initial reaction would be, before I steeled myself and spoke.

"What would your mentor, _Jaster Mereel,_ say if he saw what you're doing now? If he saw how you're so blatantly casting off the opportunity to help save countless people from certain doom because you can't be bothered?"

(Betcha' weren't expecting that one huh?!)

The info of the man who'd held the title of Mand'alor before Jango had come from the few memories I had of reading through a Star Wars comic that dealt with Jango's life prior to the beginning of the prequel films trilogy. From what I remembered of the character himself Mereel had been one of the most outspoken Mandalorians of his time, and his views of honourable combat and helping others were met with much backlash and opposition from many within the Mandalorian clans. Never the less however, his ideas and ways of fighting caused foundation-shaking changes within Mandalore's political structure that would change the way many of them lived generations later.

This honour of combat and belief in helping others as much as he could is what would eventually lead Mereel to come upon a very young Jango Fett, stranded and alone in the middle of a warzone, and would also lead him to take the young child under his wing and raise him as his own son.

Jango had slowly turned around to face me again, deadly slowly, with a very controlled expression on his face. However, I could tell from subtle queues like the tension in his neck and jaw muscles, and the slightly bulged veins in his temples that my words had done more than just strike a nerve this time.

It was more than likely they had just broken one.

Immediately he lunged out a hand and grabbed one of the bars directly in-between us, causing a rough echoing vibration to course through the metal from the force of the impact, and held it with a grip so strong it turned his knuckles white.

"Don't push my gratitude. I've slit men's throats for more then _that_," Jango informed me coolly, his voice firm but just above a whisper. I merely cocked an eyebrow and folded my arms, leveling my own cold stare with his.

"When you were a boy, did Jaster abandon you in _your_ time of need?" I posed to him just as firmly, marshaling all of my military training in order to keep my composure and continue onward. Luckily, and to my own personal relief, my question caused Jango to freeze. He remained that way for a while before slowly letting go of the bar and dropping his hand, remaining silent and never breaking eye contact with me. Even though his body language didn't show it, I could imagine pretty confidently that the gears in his head were spinning in many directions. Most of him probably wanted to know just where the hell I was getting my information from, while the rest was honestly considering my words and thinking about what I had asked him.

"Did he not go out of his way to help you when your parents were killed and you were left stranded as an orphan?" I added in, hoping desperately that I'd gotten that precise piece of information right.  
After all, it had been a number of years since I'd read the comic in question and even then I'd only been skimming over it while browsing through a bookstore in Winnipeg.

Jango was still silent, remaining that way for a few tense seconds before his brow creased slightly and his eyes flicked marginally downward away from my own, as if he were looking upon an old memory.

"He did…" he uttered without looking at me after what seemed like an eternity. I nodded to him in agreement.

"If he were in my position, and was left to defend this galaxy against the Reapers alone, would you not come to his aid and fight to your dying breath to defend it also?" Jango looked back up at me, the frown on his brow now deepening. But it wasn't a frown of anger or annoyance, it was one of contemplation. He blinked before setting his jaw, and to me it looked as if he micro-fractionally raised his chin dutifully.

"I would."

At that I smiled inside, knowing that I'd gotten Jango somewhat hooked. Now all I had to do was play the trump card that Alec had unknowingly provided me and reel him in.

"What if Boba were here? What if he were here to fight at your side? What if he were here to continue travelling with you, to continue learning from you to become just as great a warrior as you are? Would you fight with all of your being if he were here now?"

Jango froze again, and for another long moment he said nothing. Finally he nodded once, a slow and meaningful nod that imparted how strongly he felt about the subject, while answering me with a single word.

"Yes."

Immediately, and almost without thinking, I spun around to the other wall opposite the Mandalorian's cell. Choosing the area in-between two sleeper-pods directly across from us, I stretched forth my right hand and closed my eyes. I could feel the ring's power smoothly fluctuate throughout my body, starting from my hand and travelling down through the veins in my arm, growing stronger with each moment as I focused all my thoughts on who I wanted it to summon.  
A bright white glow suddenly lit up the lids covering my eyes, making me open them to behold the spectacle before us.

A familiar oval portal had appeared to fill up the space I had chosen, its radiance shimmering slightly and casting almost water-light reflections all over the room. Behind me I could hear a cautious intake of breath come from Jango, signifying that he was probably getting ready for a confrontation. For a mystified moment we and the Replicators all remained silent, all except for me watching the portal with a mix of awe and wariness.

And then abruptly the portal flickered once before vanishing in a near blinding flash of white light that forced all of us to shield our eyes or photoreceptors!

After taking a quick second to regain ourselves, we looked back to the area in question.  
Standing where the portal had once been was a young boy of about thirteen to fourteen years old, dressed in a blue tunic with grey trousers and high black boots. The boy had deep olive skin, along with wavy curled jet-black hair that was long enough to hang down just past his ears. At the moment he had his eyes closed and was rubbing the sides of his head, looking like he was trying to dispel a migraine.

Behind me Jango had stepped up directly to the bars, absently grasping two of them in his hands, his eyes widened fractionally and his face semi-wrinkled with concern. The boy continued massaging his head for a few moments before opening his eyes and looking around himself. Right away he jerked in surprise and took on a defensive fighting stance with his fists raised, his gaze flicking between the cautiously hissing Replicators on the floor and myself.

By now I had lowered my hand and was regarding the boy with a cocked eyebrow, holding our gaze before respectfully bowing my head in greeting and then using it to indicate the cage behind my shoulder. The boy flicked his attention to the cell, still keeping his guard up, before his concentration slackened and his eyes widened in shock.

"Dad…?" the young Boba Fett blurted out upon seeing the other Mandalorian standing behind the bars, his voice carrying the same New Zealand like accent that his 'father's' did.

"Boba," Jango uttered, his deep voice trying and failing to hide the subtle sound of relief I could hear filtering through it.  
Turning back to the Replicators, I pointed to the bars and then made a lowering gesture with my hand, silently commanding them to open the cell. The group of spiders nodded almost immediately before turning and making a squawking sound to the cage itself. The blocks that made up the bars started pulling themselves apart, each of them disassembling in sync with each other until all had retracted away into the adjoining walls, allowing Jango a clear exit out of the cell.  
The bounty hunter looked over at me, almost questioningly, to which I answered by inclining my head over to Boba. Without a word Jango stepped out of the cell, easily walking past me toward the boy.

"Son," Jango said, slowly advancing toward the other Fett, being mindful of how bizarre and perhaps even frightening this situation was to the young one.

"Dad I…I saw you die in the arena, the Jedi killed you." Boba had taken a few cautious steps back, keeping a safe distance from his father, his face trying to remain composed but carrying the unmistakable look of someone who thought they were seeing a ghost.

I could only sympathize with him; he had probably just witnessed his father getting his head cut off a few minutes ago, and then shortly afterward was summoned to a completely unfamiliar place only to see him alive again!

Boba's words caused Jango to stop moving just as he stepped onto the grated aisle way, a frown of very slight worry forming on his face.

"No…" he said softly, shaking his head while slowly lowering himself down onto one knee so that he could be more at Boba's height.

"No son I'm not dead, I'm here now." Jango said these words with such a fatherly tenderness I never would have expected from him, adding to the shock I was feeling after seeing him raise and semi extend his arms outward, inviting Boba into an embrace.  
Boba hesitated, looking deep into Jango's eyes before slowly dropping his raised fists and taking several steps forward. He came to a stop directly in front of his father, still looking into his dark brown irises, as if searching for any hint of this being a lie or trick.

Then, after a very long moment, the boy's face slightly wrinkled with sorrow, his eyes closing before he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Jango and laying the side of his head on top of the Mandalorian's shoulder.

Jango didn't make any noise or overly expressive reaction; he just folded his arms around his son and held him tightly. Lightly he began to rub Boba's back with his right hand, gently soothing the boy without needing to say a single word. Boba wasn't making any noise either, the firm upbringing in which Jango had raised him was keeping the young Fett from crying out or shedding any tears. But judging from how tightly he was holding on to his father, and from the way Jango was hugging him back, it was clear that the boy was deeply distraught, both with sorrow and now with relief at having his father with him again.

I on the other hand was viewing this reunion with a profound sense of apprehension and sudden regret. My hand was moving back and forth across my mouth and chin in worried thought, a thought that had only now just occurred to me after seeing the two Fetts hug.

'_What have I done? This…this was a mistake,' _I thought to myself, my eyes widening slightly as I continued to look upon the tender moment happening between father and son, the horrifying realization of the decision I had just made hitting me hard.  
I had been too eager to bring Jango onto our side, too willing to pay any price to gain his trust and his loyalty. I had acted rashly, at the time only viewing Boba as a mere means to an end, a simple resource to be exploited in our future war against Viraden and the Reapers.

I had just brought a kid into a galaxy that was doomed to soon suffer the slaughter of billions, a _kid!_

What was I thinking? I had just placed a young boy in unnecessary danger, and without the possibility of a return trip until my task was done. Now Jango would have to watch out not only for himself but also for his son; and there would be nowhere safe enough, no refuge hidden enough, and no sanctuary strong enough to repel the Reapers when they would eventually arrive and begin burning entire planets one by one!

"_Axel?"_ Haxon asked in a concerned voice, having sensed the subtle changes in my body language. I didn't answer him, merely watching the Fetts hug each other before slowly walking over to them.

"Its alright son…its alright," I heard Jango whisper to Boba firmly but gently as I came to a stop beside them.

"When you're ready, come and meet us up at the front. We'll drop you both off on a planet of your choosing…" I slowly began down to them as emotionlessly as I could, an uncomfortable feeling settling in my gut.

"I'm sorry Jango…I shouldn't have done this."

With that I turned away from him just as he lifted his head to look up at me, absently beckoning for the group of Replicators to follow as I made for the door that would lead back to the CIC.

Jango watched me leave, a strange look having come across his face. His gaze stayed on my back before turning and settling on the boy in his arms, his brow frowning slightly in contemplation.

For a silent moment his eyes only twitched back and forth, as if he were fighting an internal battle within his mind, within his very soul, trying to decide on one of the most deeply personal and uncharacteristic choices of his life.

Finally, just after I had reached the door and tapped its glowing red lock-pad, he turned back to me.

"Wait."

The door slid apart, allowing the Replicators and I to exit. But I was rooted to the spot, the single word having struck me like a lightning bolt. Several of the insects had already begun moving out of the room, but after seeing that I wasn't following they turned to look up at me before hissing between each other in a confused manner. With a stunned and mildly amazed expression, I turned around to face him.

Hugging his son one last time, the two separated from each other before Jango stood up to face me himself. With Boba taking a stand at his side, the bounty hunter blinked once as he gathered his thoughts before speaking.

"I've…I've changed my mind," he said in his usual firm tone, although hesitating slightly as if for a moment he could barely believe his own words. By now I had walked over to both of them, my eyes narrowed in suspicion but with a subtle smile of near giddiness creeping onto my face.

Had I just heard that right?

Seeing my expression caused Jango to roll his eyes in defeated annoyance while he folded his large arms.

"These Reapers will undoubtedly be a formidable force?" he inquired to me with a cocked eyebrow. I nodded curtly, my smile having now turned into a semi-smirk.

"Yes, very. And there's another enemy out there that will most likely be just as deadly, if not more so," I answered back, my focus starting to go serious again at the small mention of Lord Viraden. As I said that, nightmarish images of cyborg Jaffa and death-masked Sardaukar Terror Troopers marching through burning streets briefly flashed before my eyes, causing me to give an involuntary shudder that I somehow managed to keep hidden from the two Fetts.

"To combat them you're gonna to need an army, or a very skilled group of individuals," (Damn this guy's good!) Jango added back, a subtle meaning hidden in the undertone of his voice. I nodded again in agreement, easily picking up on what he was all too obviously implying.

"Possibly both," I answered, my smirk widening slightly.

Jango nodded openly at that, giving a familiar 'hum' as his eyes looked down to the floor in a deliberate show of contemplation.

"I trained many men after Jaster died, and I was the one who instructed the Clone Army in how to fight their war against the Confederacy," the Mandalorian began explaining, nodding again as if having come to a definitive conclusion in his own mind, before bringing his gaze back up to look me in the eye.

"Perhaps I _could_ make a small difference to this motley crew of yours…" he said as he unfolded his arms.

"…if you'll have me."

While saying this he slowly extended his right hand out to me, slowly but with an un-explainable aura about it, as if it were the hand of a person reaching out to a potential comrade for the first time.

My smirk had now transformed into a full thin smile. I knew full well Jango had already made up his mind the moment I had offered to bring Boba here in the first place; this whole conversation and contemplative body language he was giving was merely a show to make his decision seem less abrupt. I had no qualms about that though, it was the decision itself that I truly cared about. My smile warmed genuinely as I extended out my own hand and grasped his firmly, both of us shaking the others'.

"Welcome aboard Jango," I stated sincerely to him.

For the first time since I'd met him I actually saw the bounty hunter give a thin smile in return, one that only got wider as he looked down and laid a hand on Boba's far shoulder.

"It'll be an odd but…refreshing feeling, to go back to my roots." Jango said these words more to himself as he held on to his son. With his jaw set and his face taking on an expression of respect, he looked back to me and nodded once again before speaking in the same manner.

"My gun, my arm, and myself are yours Axel. Free of charge."

During this entire exchange Boba hadn't said a word, but after hearing his father pledge his support the young Fett gave me a suspicious glance before looking up toward Jango.

"Are you sure about this dad?" he asked cautiously. Jango merely squeezed the boy's shoulder reassuringly.

"I am sure son, this _is_ something worth fighting for," Jango stated with an odd tone of conviction and interest in his voice, as if he genuinely felt invested in the long journey that was to come ahead. With that thought in mind I turned to look down directly at Boba with a cocked eyebrow, which was understandably met by a narrowed glare from the not easily trusting boy.

"Can we count on you to help your father and us when the time comes Boba?" I asked down to him seriously, deciding to give the young Mandalorian the respect of being spoken to as an adult rather than a child.  
If my mistake in bringing him here was going to have any meaning, it would pay to start developing something of a rapport with the young Fett so as to truly bring him in to the folds of the crew and make him more willing to see us as allies rather then accidental captors. Luckily my words had the desired effect of softening Boba's suspicion of me, causing him to slightly ease the frown he was giving and look me up and down with a begrudging acknowledgement, clearly gauging me for any giveaways of a hidden agenda.

"Maybe," he finally answered in a stiff tone, still maintaining his guarded attitude. I nodded to him in acceptance, feeling it wouldn't help my case to get picky on any arrangement I made with our newest guest.

"Fair enough. But come on, back on the Citadel you wanted answers Jango, now I have the opportunity to give them to you," I said to both of them with a jerk of my head back to the entrance door before turning around and joining the group of Replicators still awaiting me by its frame. Jango looked down at his son with one final smile before clapping him on the back and following behind me, Boba remaining in step by his father's side the whole time.  
With that, all of us exited out from the sleeper-pod area and made our way to the CIC back through the Med-bay.

* * *

"No, no! _This_ piece goes here, _that_ piece goes there!" Alec's voice shot out from the conference area in an annoyed manner the moment I stepped through the door. The Guardian was sitting in one of the black cushioned swivel chairs set up around the table, with Yoda standing on its surface next to him. Both of them were hunched over toward the center where they along with Polly, Sparky, and several other spiders were looking down on the hundreds of pieces of the Iron Man suit, all of which had been gathered up and laid out across it.  
At the moment they all looked like a bunch of C.S.I. coroners trying to piece together the body parts of a murder victim, each taking a portion of the damaged armour and putting it in what they thought would be the most appropriate place. This succeeded in jig-sawing the Iron Man into a broken up representation of its original figure, with its head, torso, arms and legs (minus the right hand that had been lost) all placed next to each other in their proper humanoid form.  
The problem the group was having now however was in trying to figure out where all of the smaller more complicated pieces went.

"Alright this looks like it belongs to a foot, and this…this…I have no idea what this is," Alec said after placing a piece of dented plating near the suit's right boot before picking up a small object that looked like it belonged in the circuit-board of a supercomputer.

Unfortunately despite all the progress they'd made, and as successful as Alec seemed to be in helping arrange the suit back together, the Replicators only seemed to be getting more and more infuriated with him.  
At the sight of him absently flipping the delicate looking component between his thumb and forefinger, their anger inevitably became inflamed. Polly quickly screeched with a start before lunging forward and grabbing the object with his front pincer legs, ripping it out from Alec's grasp before he could register what was happening. Alec's immediate reaction was to jerk in his seat and recoil in dramatic fear with his hands shielding around his face before quickly regaining his composure.

"Cool off Tin-Can, I know what I'm doing! Remember _I_ was the one who showed you how to build this thing in the first place!" he expressed hotly.

Right away all of the machines, both on the table and those still making repairs throughout the bridge, turned and hissed angrily at the Guardian like a bunch of pissed off Rattle Snakes while flaring their wing-flaps!

Yoda cocked a brow at this and folded his arms, turning and giving Alec a very pointed 'Now you've done it' look. The combined glares of the Replicators made Alec's expression drop, followed by him slowly raising his hands defensively and shrinking back into his chair.

"Then again you were the ones who actually built it, so I guess I could just sit back and watch quietly," he added in quickly, getting an annoyed hiss from Polly before he and the others returned to their work. I chuckled as I walked over to the table.

"All's well with the crew I see," I stated pleasantly to everyone in front of me, easily moving around and sliding into the chair next to Alec and Yoda before comfortably reclining back and causally placing my left ankle on top of my right knee. Polly let out a noise of delight before quickly scurrying across the table toward me, fervently nuzzling my outstretched hand as I smiled and greeted him. After giving him a few strokes across his wing-flaps, my Replicator friend latched on to my wrist and easily climbed up the length of my arm, taking no time in finding a comfortable position to perch from on my left shoulder. While that was happening Alec was looking past me back to the Med-bay's door, seeing Jango slowly walking out of it toward us while glancing around himself at the hive of Replicators operating throughout the room.

"So what was the verdict?" he whispered to me, eyeing Jango with guarded suspicion. I merely smiled and spoke openly while giving both the bounty hunter and Guardian a reassuring nod.

"He's agreed to help us, with no additional charge aside from the normal necessities of room, board, and armaments." Alec jerked as if he'd just been stung, his suspicion skyrocketing and mixing in with a sense of very sudden surprise. Jango saw this right away, folding his muscular arms in a showy manner and giving my companion a very smug smirk.

"Guess you won't be the only muscle on this crew now Alec," the bounty hunter said to him, a subtle snarky undertone of humour in his voice. The Guardian however wasn't sharing the sentiments, his expression remaining dead serious as he regarded Jango with a cold stare.

"Would you mind regaling me with how you managed to sway the _mercenary_ into joining us?" Alec fired off coolly before turning his swivel chair and staring at me directly, clearly bracing himself for what he thought would be the story of how I had promised the bounty hunter half the galaxy or some other absurd reward for his services.  
But I didn't say a word; I didn't have to. All I did in answer to his question was smile knowingly and nod my head back over to Jango.  
Or rather, the area just off to the side from Jango.

Nearly a dozen Replicator spiders had paused in their work to group around the Mandalorian, each gazing up at him with curiousity since many in the horde still hadn't had the opportunity of a meeting while he had been asleep. Alec frowned at me before rotating his eyes to look at what I was indicating, and immediately his jaw dropped once he saw it.  
Boba was kneeling by his father's left leg, having entered the room directly behind Jango and therefore having stayed hidden from everyone's view during our exchange.

However, the young boy had chosen now to reveal himself due to the many machines beginning to surround him, his own curiousity of the Replicators overriding his caution of the moment. Clear fascination shined within the young Fett's eyes while he looked upon the mechanical spiders, a small grin creeping across his face as he reached out a hand and began lightly stroking one of them on their 'head' area. This caused many of the encircling spiders to hum pleasantly and start crowding around Boba specifically, further delighting the boy into petting more of them.

Realization struck Alec, making him snap his fingers and give a wide mouthed grin.

"Wow, I really am a genius!" he declared loudly while smacking the ball of his palm against his forehead (or maybe he just needed a V8, who knows), before letting out a joyous cackle at the contribution he had unknowingly played in securing our new partnership with the former Mand'alor. A puzzled frown crossed Jango's face at this typical Alecish display, followed by a short chuckle as he shrugged and shook it off. I on the other hand could only sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, shaking my head tiredly.

"Already let that notion go to your head, I fear you have Alec," Yoda remarked from beside us, his voice betraying the same emotion I was feeling at the moment.  
Suddenly however Boba snapped up to a stand, a look of anger on his face after Yoda's words had caused him to look up from the floor to see who had spoken.

"Dad, that guy's a Jedi! I remember him from Geonosis, he invaded the arena and saved the one who killed you!" Boba warned up to Jango, jabbing an enraged finger over at Yoda.

The cheery demeanor that had been lightly permeating around the room vanished in an instant.

"Oookayy…this has gotten awkward real quick," Alec muttered over to me from out of the corner of his mouth.

Yoda remained silent in the face of Boba's accusation, keeping his features in a grim expression, but also giving a slight frown that looked akin to disappointment. Jango looked at Yoda for a moment before cocking an eyebrow and glancing down at his son, once again resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  
"He _is_ a Jedi…and he's also the man who helped save my life, if I remember correctly," Jango said to the young boy before lifting his gaze and staring back at the Master directly. This new information caught Boba by surprise, causing his guard to falter and his arm to drop.

"Without his help, my body would still be broken and I might not have made it off that station in as good a shape as I did. For that I owe him a debt of gratitude." As he said these words, the Mandalorian gave a curt nod of respect to the Master.

"That is unnecessary, merely played my part I did, for your own well being and for that of our journey ahead," Yoda stated with a wave of his hand and a causal shake of his head. Jango nodded again.

"And I shall play mine…" he began earnestly before clenching his right hand into a fist and placing it over his chest in the area his heart would be.

"By the honour of the True Mandalorians, and in the memory of Jaster Mereel, I swear that I will do everything in my power to see you through to the end of your journey. As will _my son_, even if it means working alongside a hundred Jedi to do so," Jango vowed to us all in a solemn voice, before looking down at the younger Fett and uttering the final part with a stern tone of parental authority.

Boba turned away from his father's hard gaze, huffing quietly in defeat before looking back up and glaring at Yoda and I.

"Fine, I'll also do my part to help you," he begrudgingly said to the both of us with a firm nod, right before he balled his own fist and slammed it against his chest in a way similar to Jango's.

"To the death if need be," he finished dutifully. I bowed my head to the two of them respectfully, showing that I was grateful and humbled by their almost religious like pledge of support. With that finished and the Fetts truly onboard with us, I turned back to Alec and swept my hand out to them with an overly proud smirk.

I had done what my Guardian had thought was impossible. I had just gotten not only Jango Fett, but also _Boba_ Fett to openly declare an alliance with us, without having to give away so much as a nickel!

Alec's eyes were narrowed in amazement, his mouth hanging half open as his irises zigged back and forth between the two Mandalorians and myself. Finally after a long moment and what felt like the hundredth time, he brought his gaze back to mine before suddenly pointing at me with a snap of his fingers.

"Oh, you're good," he complimented in a dramatic low voice.

Both Yoda and I laughed openly at that, even being joined by a few chuckles from Jango and one or two involuntary ones from Boba.

"If we're truly at the beginning of this journey you've been talking about, what's to be our first move?" Jango asked of me as he and Boba crossed over to the other side of the conference table opposite us, shoeing aside a few Replicator spiders before sliding themselves into a pair of swivel chairs close to the table's end. It was at this moment that Haxon abruptly decided to add his two cents to the conversation.

"_I believe the first order of business to be attended to is quite clear. Axel, now would probably be the best time to tell everyone what you have told me. Tell them the truth about why we are all here and where this universe truly originates from." _

I blew out a breath, now was the moment of truth.

I knew I couldn't keep blowing this off forever, but we still hadn't dealt with the issue of the new potential allies that I wanted to bring in to our crew, all of whom were going to need the exact same explanation as Haxon and the others. I actually already had _four_ specific candidates in mind, two of which I was pretty sure would be easy in convincing, while the others were most likely going to need a great deal of evidence before they would decide on anything.

"You're right Haxon, now _is_ the right time. But before I explain anything, I want to first bring in those new recruits I mentioned so that they can hear it too, that way we can kill two birds with one stone," I said to the A.I..  
Everyone, including the Replicators, all turned to me with looks or movements of confusion.

"Wait, what do you mean_ new recruits_?" asked Alec with a puzzled frown. I gave the crew a knowing glance, unable to keep myself from slipping into the feel of a dramatic mystery-movie like moment.

"Well, during our eventful escape, it suddenly occurred to me that we appear to be a bit short handed for taking on _two_ galactic invasion forces," I said with a sweep of my hand across the room. The Replicators all began to hissing worriedly between each other, my words even causing Polly to shift warily on my shoulder.

With a cocked eyebrow from Alec and a look of interest from Yoda and the rest of the crew, I leaned forward over the table and began explaining the basis for my plan.

It was simple. Despite my Mind Mending with the _Corsica_ during our escape from the Citadel, I had already proven myself to be a less than ideal helmsman for a starship. If we were going to be following in Commander Shepard's footsteps throughout an entire trilogy, it meant almost by default that Alec, Haxon, and I were always going to be off on some away-mission instead of running the ship. The same could be said for Jango, Yoda, and even Polly, whoever else I chose to bring along with me during these times.  
This meant that we were definitely going to need a pilot, a very skilled pilot who could learn and adapt to the technology of the Mass Effect universe easily and without much training time needed.

Normally I would have simply left this role to the Replicators but they were going to have their hands full just as much as we were, mostly with keeping the ship in fighting shape, repairing any damages it might sustain in the coming days, and providing us with any weapons or technology that could aid in our missions.

The pilot I had in mind was an individual who had nearly the exact same efficiency as the Replicators, but at the same time could think and reason in the same manner as a Human being…at least when he chose to.

Having a pilot with these abilities would be of monumental value to us, both in the field and in the strategic aspects of our journey, and it would free up the responsibility of flying the ship which would in turn allow the Replicators more manpower and time to work on whatever projects they wanted to.

Upon explaining this proposal to the group, Yoda and Jango were the first to agree with my reasoning, soon being followed unanimously by the rest.

Next I came to the slightly problematic matters of Haxon being restricted to the confines of my Spectre armour and how that now we were off the Citadel, away from his home and severed from any far reaching connections he may have had, the only way he could properly interface with the outside world was through scanning or being digitally connected to a system through physical contact from my omni-tool. Having already seen some of his abilities in action, and after I made a lengthy mention about how well he and I had worked together as a team in operating not just the Iron Man suit but also the _Corsica_, Alec immediately came to the same conclusion I had.

I wanted to bring _another_ A.I. onto our crew to be used permanently onboard the ship!

"I see what you're getting at now," Alec said to me with a sly nod and a knowing look, reclining back in his chair and placing his SS jackboots up on the table crossed at the ankles. I nodded back to him, knowing full well he was thinking of EDI from the second _Normandy, _and how invaluable she had been to Shepard and his crew in some of their direst hours. I basically wanted to do something similar with the A.I. I had in mind, my intent being to summon him directly into the _Corsica_'s mainframe and have him work alongside us in pretty much the exact same capacity that EDI had for the SR-2.  
Unfortunately this proposition didn't seem to sit well with Haxon, of all people, making him voice his opinion in a cautious tone.

"_Are you sure that is a wise decision Axel? Nearly all recorded A.I. in this galaxy have been known to be extremely dangerous, and always deadly. They can often times cause terrible damage to anything they have access to if not properly monitored,"_ Haxon warned me, his voice edgy with the type of wariness you only gained through personal experience. The crew looked at each other in surprise, everyone except Boba who could only sit and listen to the exchange, soaking up every detail even though he didn't quite know what was going on.

All of us found it odd that it was our _A.I._ companion who was giving us these words of caution, you'd think he'd be the one to advocate the most vocally for this idea.

"I know the risks Haxon, I've seen a few A.I.'s in my time who have gone down that route before," I reassured him, thinking back to all the movies and games I had seen throughout my years that showed some kind of evil computer-mind acting as the story's main villain. HAL 9000 from _2001: A Space Odyssey_, GLaDOS from the game _Portal_, the Decepticons from _Transformers_, that nameless A.I. housed in an out of the way terminal on the Presidium in the first Mass Effect.

Yes, I had seen quite graphically the dangers of an advanced A.I. wreaking havoc whenever they had taken a shot at creating ultimate power for themselves.

"_Then you should know full well how much A.I.s despise and detest organics, seeing them as inferior lesser minded beings, or even a threat to their very existence. The Citadel's records of the Geth Uprising and the war they ultimately waged against their Quarian creators are a prime example of how bad things can become in a relationship between organics and synthetics. If you are truly adamant in bringing another synthetic intelligence into the folds of our crew then I wholeheartedly support it, but I advise you to ensure that it is one that we can either control or trust unconditionally to watch our backs in the line of fire."_

Alec and I shot each other a look, both of us feeling the same spike of discomfort about the part concerning the Geth. The Geth had indeed rebelled against their creators, but the Guardian and myself were the only ones in the room who knew the true reason for why they had done so. The memories of the first time I had met the Geth platform who would come to be known as Legion, and the shocking revelations he would later show me about the True Geth and their splintered Heretic cousins began to crop up quickly within both of our minds, making Alec straighten up slightly.

"But Haxon, _you_'_re_ a pretty advanced A.I. and you haven't tried to kill us yet; from what I've seen you don't openly detest organics either. At least as far as we know. Surely there are other A.I.s in this galaxy who think and feel as you do," Alec tried suggesting, his words obvious only to me as an attempt to try and steer Haxon's mind into considering the possibility of friendly A.I.s. If we were ever to meet either Legion or EDI in person sometime in the future, I hoped Haxon would be willing to accept their behaviours as proof that his current views about his fellow synthetics weren't completely accurate.

"_My case is different Alec. I was not created simply to serve as an instrument of an organic's will, as most A.I.s are. My true creation was born out of the choice of one man to save my life from deconstruction. If it hadn't been for Steve Irwin taking it upon himself to disobey orders and pluck me from the fires of an incinerator, I would not be here today. And subsequently, if it had not been for Steven's trust in me and his providing the software needed to increase my intelligence to true sentiency, I would have remained an obsolete V.I. program that had been haphazardly gutted from the innards of a defunct Alliance Cruiser. My case is different because I have basically _grown up_ with Humans and other organics as not just as my creators, but also as my family and my friends." _

I was impressed by this revelation, Haxon's words easily giving us all a better picture of his backstory and the circumstances that had molded his character into what he was today.

"Believe me you won't need to worry about this A.I., he's an intelligence that was created to Protect and Serve for the greater good of everyone, not just organics. He may need some extra convincing along with the explanation I'm about to give you, but I feel confident that he'll be ready and eager to join us for the duration of our quest once he's shown the truth," I said. Jango, Yoda, and Boba all frowned or cocked their heads at this description, becoming more and more intrigued by this mysterious A.I. with each new hint I dropped.  
"Wow, you make this guy sound like some kind of Cyber-Cop. Who is he?" asked Alec, earning a few agreeing nods and eager looks from the others, including several of the Replicators. But I only held up a hand to dissuade their expectancy.

"Ah patience people, you'll see when I bring him here. Now the next person is going to be…" I began with another knowing smile before continuing on to the third member of my intended quartet.

This guy I feared was going to be the toughest out of the bunch. Not only because the character himself was going to be a stubborn nut to crack, but because he was the one who was most likely going to have the hardest time getting used to our surroundings and ME's technology.  
Boba was the first to ask what this new individual's job would be on the ship, to which I answered that he would be acting as a Chief Engineer of sorts to the _Corsica_'s engines and weapons.

As you can imagine this caused Polly and the other Replicators to jerk or squawk in surprise, all of them stopping in what they were doing and hissing between each other, creating a rather high pitched hum of noise that reverberated throughout the room.  
Suddenly many of them began scurrying over toward me, crowding around my chair or climbing up on top of the conference table in front of Polly and I, screeching and waving their front pincer legs at me as if they were shouting their displeasure!

I gave a wincing sigh. I could only sympathize with what they must have been feeling at that moment. With everything I had suggested so far, bringing in a new pilot, a new A.I., and now a new engineer, it seemed as if I was trying to put the Replicators out of a job!

"Everyone please, calm down!" I began trying to say to the horde over their jabbering hisses. But my voice barely rose above the constant chatter, which only grew louder as more spiders and beetles clawed their way towards me. While this happened, Sparky and several spiders who had decided to continue working on the Iron Man suit during my proposal were now desperately trying to keep their frantic siblings from knocking the delicate components all over the place.  
But as the pandemonium increased, a beetle and several other spiders came crashing over the tabletop, unintentionally plowing straight into the suit's layout.

In a loud clatter of metal on metal, the beetle and spiders lost their footing on the piles of debris before flailing their pincher legs in all directions in order to regain their balance, their movements scattering microchips and sending pieces of circuitry flying across the conference table, while also causing several of the smaller more intricate pieces to splash over the edges!

Sparky and his team of mechanics could only silently watch this dramatic destruction of their work in the best Replicator equivalent of wide eyed, jaw dropped horror.

Jango and Boba had to raise an arm to shield their faces from the pieces of the suit that were being kicked up toward them, while on my side of the table Yoda and Alec were either dodging or ducking their heads to avoid any projectiles. This ruckus only lasted for a few seconds, but it was loud and distracting enough to catch the rest of the horde's attention, making the buzz of hisses still ringing throughout the CIC cease immediately as everyone directed their gazes toward the center of the table.

By now the beetle and spiders had finally stopped their thrashing, slowly pulling themselves back up to a normal four legged stance. Just as slowly, they looked around themselves at the now thoroughly jumbled pieces of the Iron Man, visibly cringing with dread like a group of scared children as they lifted their gazes up to Sparky and his team.

For a long moment the two groups stared at each other, neither of them making a sound nor flinching a rotor.

Then suddenly Sparky let out a feral hissing scream of rage, bringing up his right leg and angrily swiping the Iron Man helmet out of his way, sending it spinning off the table into Alec's lap. Before anyone could do anything the Replicator screamed again and charged forward like an animal infected with rabies, kicking up more scattered parts of the suit before leaping into the air and slamming full force into the now cowering beetle!

In a great scuffle of hisses and flying Iron Man pieces, Sparky wrapped his front pincers around the beetle's lower torso and lifted it up off the tabletop before throwing it down onto its back in a classic Gorilla Powerslam.  
Despite his small size, the smoking/electrocuting spider began to utterly decimate his larger beetle sibling, jumping on top of his downed enemy and raining a vicious barrage of heavy blows with his sharp pincer legs upon its 'facial' area. The beetle itself had now gotten over its fear, giving its own snarl of rage before striking back, stabbing its pincers against Sparky's torso in an attempt to throw him off.

Within milliseconds this evolved into an all out slugging fest, with Sparky's spider assistants charging forward in a chorus of hisses and attacking the _beetle's_ group of spiders openly, body-checking or lunging out at each of them in unison!

As each pair of arachnids began beating the utter crap out of each other, Sparky and his beetle foe started rolling over each other all around the table, both of them striking wildly.

We were now watching a miniature backyard brawl happening right in front of us!

"You will _rarely_ see a stranger sight," Alec commented matter-of-factly to all of us before picking up the helmet and casually chucking it aside.

"Guys! Could you…please?!" I began trying to shout over the hissing and crashing happening in front of me, jerking myself up into a straight sitting position while my head followed Sparky and the beetle roll viciously back and forth across the table's length. The other Replicators that had been on the outer edges of the table were now jumping off, allowing the pairs of brawling spiders more space to continue pounding at each other. A heavy chanting squawk soon began coming from the rest of the horde that had grouped around the bottom of the table, as if they were all shouting 'Fight, Fight, Fight!' in their Replicator language to the siblings duking it out above.

Across the table Jango and Boba were reclining their chairs to keep a safe distance away from the edge, but at the same time were watching the chaos with unmistakable looks of amusement, and in Boba's case even excitement.

"This would beat a game of Dejarik any day!" Jango called over to me before getting cut off as one of the spiders was thrown from the brawl into his chest. In a snap decision he picked it up and shoved it back out toward the Replicator it had been fighting, saying something along the lines of 'Get back in there and finish him off!' like some avid fan on the sidelines of a back-alley Boxing match.

"You're not helping!" I said back to him exasperatedly, earning a laugh and a grin from the two Mandalorians as the fight continued.

"FIVE ON SPARKY!" Alec called into the thrashing maw immediately after I said this, cupping a hand around his mouth and egging the two sides on even further. With a fierce glare I snapped my head over to him, noticing Yoda now standing on the left armrest of the Guardian's swivel chair, having had to jump to there after the table-top became a less than ideal spot to be.

Alec himself was leaning forward with two other Replicator spiders sitting around him, one positioned on his chair's right armrest, while the second was perched on his right shoulder. All of them were also leaning forward and screeching in a manner that could only be similar to Alec's cheering.

Turning and seeing my glare, Yoda could only shrug with a frown, showing that he seemed to be the only person here who shared my sentiments about this situation. Alec on the other hand only shrugged while at the same time spreading a wide grin across his face.

"Hey c'mon! First rule of Replicator Fight-Club, ALWAYS talk about Replicator Fight-Club!"

Even though Alec's statement was directed at me, the moment they heard his words every spider and beetle watching the spectacle from the floor simultaneously thrust a pincer leg up into the air and gave a hissing cry of victory, showing that they wholeheartedly agreed with this new idea!

"Yeah thanks for that," I shot back at him sarcastically before returning my attention to the brawl.  
"Could we please get some order in here?!" I shouted uselessly, sounding almost like a Court Judge to the bludgeoning machines rolling or being thrown across my line of sight. At this point in the fight the Iron Man suit, the whole reason for this chaos, had now been all but tossed onto the floor, the table's reflective black surface nearly completely cleared off by the mad fight.

The beetle made a powerful swipe with the back of its front leg, hitting Sparky in the midsection and sending him flying through the air before crash-landing harshly on his back directly before me. In an instant the beetle was on top of him, both Replicators locking pincers in a fierce contest of strength, each pushing against the other, trying to drive their sharp ends into the other's face. Knowing that if I dared try and reach over to pull them apart I might end up losing a hand, I turned to the red and silver Replicator still perched on my left shoulder.

Throughout this entire fiasco Polly had remained oddly silent, merely twitching his body back and forth between his raging brethren, seemingly rendered mute by the shock of seeing his family fight against each other so viciously.

"Would you mind?!" I demanded to him, making a jabbing gesture over to the two machines struggling in front of us. Polly momentarily jerked to me in surprise, as if coming out of a daze, before turning back to the Table-Top Brawl. Immediately he semi-lunged forward, wing-flaps flaring, and let out a horrendous commanding hiss that resonated throughout the entire room.  
Right away all of the Replicator horde stopped in their chanting, while the ones fighting on the table froze in place, even those piled on top of others, and turned their gazes over to me. After a moment of silence in which several of the spiders actually decided to get off of the ones they were crushing, I gave a short sigh of relief before raising a calming hand.

"Now…" I began, saying the word slowly and soothingly.

But barely a second after I'd said it, the beetle snapped its body back down to Sparky. With the spider still pinned underneath it, the beetle drew back one of its legs in preparation to strike.

Amazingly however Sparky proved to be the faster, having anticipated this act of treachery from his sibling. Before the beetle could complete his strike and bury the end of his leg through the spider's 'head' area, Sparky launched his right leg up and smashed its tip across the front of the beetle's face, delivering the best Replicator equivalent of whacking his attacker on the jaw!

The beetle gave out a grating noise that could have been interpreted as a grunt, the force of Sparky's punch knocking it off of him onto its side. Immediately the Smoking Spider leapt up and tackled the barely recovered beetle, sending it sprawling onto its back with Sparky on top of it again.  
Seeing that the fight was still hot, the other spiders on the table quickly resumed hostilities, brutally slugging the nearest ones next to them or jumping back on top of those that had been pinned down earlier!

I threw my hands up in defeat and shoved myself back in my chair, blowing out a _very_ annoyed breath. Polly tried hissing again but this time his orders went unheeded, the brawling Replicators barely even giving him a second's thought now. Seeing this development for himself, my Replicator friend could only look over at me and shake his body in a negative way, raising his front pincer legs in another imitation of shrugging.  
I slammed the palm of my hand against my forehead in frustration, tightly pulling it down across the front of my face so that it stretched the skin around my eyes and mouth, momentarily exposing their pink fleshy interiors and making me look like some kind of zombie from _Night of the Living Dead_ before I let go, allowing my features to immediately snap back to normal.

"This is just sad…" I muttered to myself, absently relaxing within the cushioning of my chair and watching the spectacle with a deliberate look of semi-interest.

Thankfully however this was short-lived, for after only a few moments of the Replicators resuming their senseless fight Master Yoda launched himself into the air from Alec's armrest, landing in a crouch directly within the center of the table amidst the thrashing machines.

"ENOUGH!" he commanded, his voice ringing clear and powerful, sounding ten times younger and more forceful then his usual tone. As he spoke he snapped both arms out to either side, palms wide open, and unleashed an explosion of Force energy from within his core. A faint blue shockwave shot away from the little green alien, faintly rippling the very air around us and passing over every beetle or spider on the table's surface.

Immediately without warning, the Replicators were floating!

The fight abruptly ended once again as each machine was lifted off the table into the air, every one of them squawking with a start and flailing their limbs helplessly at their newfound weightlessness, all slowly twirling or bobbing upward as if lost in the zero-gravity of space. Each of us blinked in surprise, looking up at the ensnared machines slowly crisscrossing over our heads. As we did this, Boba was the first to glance around and notice that it was only the Replicators who had been on the table that were being levitated at the moment, while the rest of the horde surrounding us remained firmly attached to the floor.

"Even I'll admit that was pretty impressive," Boba stated to us with an equal nod.

"_Thank you_ Yoda!" I professed loudly to the Jedi Master, leaning forward and clasping my hands together in a dramatic imitation of divine praise.

"Now, perhaps willing to listen they will be," Yoda said gruffly in his normal voice before turning and waving a hand through the air. Right away the floating insects dropped like stones, most of them falling back down onto the table, while several others unfortunately clanged off the edges and tumbled haphazardly to the deck. Sparky was the one to land roughly on his back in front of me, while his beetle opponent landed on its feet farther off to the side.

However, thinking that it could take this opportunity to finish the fight once and for all, the beetle immediately surge forth and B-Lined straight for its downed spider brother.

But I wasn't going to stand for that, having had my fill of this childish behaviour for one day.

"HEY!" I barked as I snapped out a hand and caught the machine by one of its back legs, hoisting it up and pulling it over to face me upside down.

"Enough is _Enough!_ If you can't get over this little dispute I'll either throw you out the nearest airlock or have you on _toilet duty_ for the rest of the mission. Is that clear?!" I shouted directly at it. My tone was the classic poster-image of a military officer trying to scare his troops into compliance, while the words themselves were actually from one of the first memories I had of Captain Cormier saying something similar to two disruptive juniors during my early days in Officer training.

I could feel the beetle fearfully shaking in my hand; it's body quickly nodding an upside-down affirmative to my demands before I turned and politely dropped it on the floor amidst its other brethren.

"Now that we've worked _that_ out of our systems, hopefully you can all just stay calm for one moment and let me explain my proposal a bit more. Can you do that?" I asked all of the Replicators, directing my glaring eyes specifically at Sparky and the rest of the spiders sprayed out on the table. After many of them guiltily turned away from my hard stare and gave begrudging nods of acceptance, I sucked in a huge breath before letting it out slowly and settling back in my seat.

Clearly and as calmly as I could manage, I began explaining in depth the genius skillset and qualifications of this new Engineer as well as what he would be doing on the ship alongside the Replicators. For the next few minutes I made sure I put extra emphasis on the fact that this man would _not_ be taking over the Replicators' jobs, but rather working with them in order to add a tactical 'Human edge' to their machine-horde-A.I. way of thinking, similar to the arrangement between myself and Haxon. After this clarification, the horde's mood slowly changed from morbid outrage to slowly climbing optimism, making many of them whisper to each other in semi-excitement.

"So what about the forth person?" Boba asked me after the low chatter of noise had died down.  
"Yeah, that only makes three so far, who's the last one you're bringing in?" Alec concurred with a nod to Boba. With a sly grin I turned to Yoda, who had walked over and sat himself down cross-legged on the end of the table near the corridor that led to the ship's cockpit.

"Someone I believe our Jedi Master here will be quite familiar with, seeing as how he's the one who trained him many years ago I believe."

Yoda cocked a curious eyebrow at this interesting fact, while Alec came to attention and looked between the two of us. Across the table Boba was staring at me with wide eyes and a look of bafflement.  
"You're going to bring in _another_ Jedi?" the young Mandalorian spoke out, his eyes briefly shifting over to Yoda. At this Jango subtly shot his son a hooded glare, giving him a very pointed warning to watch his words.

"Master Yoda and my friend Alec here are not just my travelling companions, they're also my teachers that have been brought here to help me understand how to use this thing better," I said to Boba with a nod to the Guardian and Jedi before raising my right hand to show him the ring through the holes in my glove-finger.

"My original plan was to have them remain in that capacity throughout the course of this journey, but recent events, and a new threat, have changed the goals of our mission." Alec nodded immediately.

"Oh yes, his majesty Emperor Lord Viraden himself, the great and powerful Universal Dictator. Shadowed in mystery and worshipped by an army of cultist proxy soldiers…but also the man who we don't really know anything about. Aside from the fact that he somehow has the power to conquer entire dimensions within breathtakingly short timespans," the Guardian announced dramatically to everyone with a flippant hand-gesture before propping his chin within his palm.  
Boba frowned at this odd statement, looking over to Jango for clarification but only getting a shrug in response since the bounty hunter himself only vaguely knew what we were talking about.

Giving a (rather dramatic) tired sigh, I briefly skimmed over everything that had happened during my flight in the Iron Man suit while Jango was asleep, filling him and Boba in on the strange meetings that had befallen me, and how this mysterious Viraden's involvement in our quest was certainly going to have major adverse effects on the events ahead of us.

As I imparted this knew knowledge to them Jango's sharp perception skills kicked in right away, allowing him to conclude my proposal before I had the chance to.  
"You want to bring this new Jedi in to act as a commander for the army we're going to need to raise."  
"That's exactly what I want to do," I answered with a nod to the bounty hunter.

"This Jedi has commanded armies like the very one we thinking of building. He's got the know-how, the experience, and the gritty realism needed to whip our future recruits into fighting shape."  
"If we combine his leadership with Jango's training regiment, I can guarantee Viraden will be hard pressed to take this galaxy from us, and even then he would have to rip it from our cold dead fingers!" I clenched my hand into a fist as I said this, earning a surprised look from Boba and an impressed half grin from Jango.

"I'm beginning to like the sound of this guy," he said to the rest of us.

"Me too. I think it's about high time we met these people," Alec added in with an enthusiastic nod over to the Mandalorian.

"I agree. Time it is to make our alliance," Yoda concurred to me with a short nod.

Looking around and getting an encouraging nod from the others, even Boba, I turned to Polly and gently shoed him off of my shoulder before standing up.

Moving out from my chair, I stood facing the wall across the table from me, squaring my shoulders and widening my stance so as to brace myself for the incoming shock I was going to experience. Seeing what I was doing, Jango stood up and pulled Boba away from their side of the table, their example being followed by many of the Replicator horde as they all scattered away from that area.

With the coast clear I cracked the knuckles on my right hand before I extended it forward, tensing every muscle down along my arm.

After focusing my thoughts, I began to feel the effects right away. The ring started to glow its usual colour, growing brighter and brighter as I drew more power from it, as I focused harder on the people I wanted to summon. An unnatural breeze began to flow through the room, causing everyone's hair to move and Yoda's robes to flap slightly as the Jedi stood up into a defensive position.

And then at that moment, just as I began to wince from the physical stress the ring was putting on me, three shimmering oval portals swirled into existence, their blinding silver radiance causing several of us to squint or shield our eyes.  
The wind had now picked up even greater speed and was beginning to press against us full force, causing Yoda's torn robes to ripple all around him as if they had a mind of their own, while Alec and the Fetts had to reach out a hand and brace themselves against whatever was nearby. As the three portals continued to spread out until they were almost as big as a grown man, I could see out of the corners of my vision the others preparing themselves for a confrontation.

Alec was still sitting in his chair, one hand holding on to the conference table while the other was resting on the butt of one of Jango's blaster pistols still tucked in his belt. At the end of the table Yoda was down on one knee bracing himself against the raging wind, one hand raised to shield his eyes while his other firmly held on to the hilt of his lightsaber, ready to ignite it the moment he saw trouble.  
Off to my right I could make out Boba holding on to one of the curved ceiling-to-floor supports, his free hand clenched into a fist and ready to swing at the first enemy he saw. Beside him I could see Jango reaching far into the left sleeve of his flight suit, from which he pulled out a short but very sharp looking assassin's knife that Alec and Yoda hadn't found when they had relieved him of his armour, to which he held upside down in his palm.

All around me the Replicators were getting tossed across the floor in every direction by the increasing wind. Some of them were managing to dig their sharp legs into the metal of the deck and hold their ground, while many others could only screech in fright as they slammed into each other or any nearby objects. Polly was one of the few who were actually standing firm and facing the three portals, his wing flaps flared and his front pincers ready to sink into the first thing that tried to attack us.

For a few more brief but hectic seconds this continued, until finally the middle portal shimmered brighter than the others. But immediately after that a single burst of yellow energy fired out from it and struck against one of the ceiling-to-floor supports set up right in-between Alec and I!

"AHHH!" we shouted as both of us ducked down below the surface of the table, the beam disintegrating the center of the support into a mass of steaming grey ooze.  
With my concentration broken, the shining glow from the ring and the portals quickly began to fade away, but not before all three of them shimmered brightly and hurled their occupants out into the room.

Three very different looking men grunted or gasped in pain as they all slammed against the side of the conference table from their rough flight, the portals swirling away into nothingness and the roaring wind dying down soon afterward.

The man who had been thrown out of the middle portal quickly started picking himself up from the table, as if he hadn't experienced any pain or injury at all. In his hand was what appeared to be a StarFleet Type 2 Phaser Pistol, showing that he had been the one who'd fired that strange energy blast at us just a second ago. On his person he wore a near all black one-piece uniform, with a black belt weaved through a round silver buckle wrapping around his waist. The fabric of the uniform that went across the top quarter of his torso around his neck and pectoral area was a mixed purplish grey colour, with a small Starfleet communicator pin placed on the left side of his chest.

Physically speaking, the man had jet-black combed back hair, paper white skin, and deep yellowish eyes. (Guess whooo!)

As Alec and I stood up along with this man he quickly took notice of us and went on the defensive, snapping to attention and raising his weapon to me. In a flash Yoda and Alec came to my own defense, the Jedi igniting his lightsaber with a flick of his thumb and the Guardian whipping out his blaster.

"Ah! Ah! I wouldn't if I were you…" Alec began viciously as he pointed his pistol at the Starfleet officer. But before he could finish his statement his arm slackened and his eyes widened slightly.

"C-Commander Data?" he blurted out upon recognizing the legendary android's face and appearance.

Data, of the Enterprise-E, frowned slightly at the mention of his name but didn't take the bead of his phaser off my chest.

"Might I ascertain as to how you know my name sir?" he asked of Alec, his articulate voice an exact replica's of Brent Spiner's. Alec turned to look back at me, giving a faint shrug while only loosely keeping his gun on the android officer.

"Well…we uhh," Alec began answering. But suddenly he was interrupted by a deeper voice giving out a low groan. Off to the side, the man who had been thrown closest to Yoda latched a hand onto the edge of the table, painfully pulling himself up to his knees while rubbing the side of his head.

"Oy. Sure cracked my noggin' there," he muttered to himself with a wince, his voice thick with an Irish/Scottish sounding accent. This man was a heavy set individual, with a large dark mustache and a thick head of greying hair. On him he wore a bright red tunic uniform with black trousers and a large black belt fitted with a brass buckle in its center. From where I stood I could just make out an older style phaser pistol sitting in a holster attached to this belt, along with an odd set of tools in a large leather pouch just beside it.

As this man continued to rub his head he looked up from the surface of the table to the saber holding Jedi standing right in front of him. After a moment of staring the man let go of his head and looked Yoda up and down with a severe frown.

"Now just what exactly are you suppose to be?" the man asked of the Master. Before Yoda had the chance to answer, the Scotsman turned to the rest of us and immediately went into the same defensive mindset that Data had, who at the moment was still pointing his weapon at me.

"An' what n' the bloomin' hell is all this!" he barked as he jumped up to his feet, his left hand reaching down and whipping out his phaser faster than I thought him capable of.  
Now even Data had taken his attention off me, turning his head to see whom this man was.

"Captain Montgomery Scott," I stated with a widening grin, almost unable to believe that I had actually managed to bring in this Sci-Fi legend.  
"Aye laddie that's me, an' just who the blazes are you?" Scott answered me with a nod, he too now levelling his phaser straight at my chest.

"That is an answer I would most appreciate hearing also," Data said firmly, turning back to face me with his weapon arm having not moved an inch.

"You chose Scotty as the Engineer?!" Alec asked over to me with an even wider grin than mine, the giddiness in his voice making him sound like a Star Trek nerd you had just died and gone to heaven.

But then, once again before any explanations could be given, the third man to have been thrown into the room stood up, rubbing his forehead with ball of his palm.

"What happened?" he asked after a groan in his deep roughish voice while keeping his eyes closed.

This one was the most exotic looking out of the three. The first thing anyone would notice about this guy was his physique. He was a tall man in his late 40's to mid 50's with a short pointy grey bread and long hair of the same colour tied up in an immaculate samurai style ponytail. His body structure was made up of large well-toned muscles, forged from years of fighting in countless battles. On his person he wore a torn and shabby brown garb that wrapped tightly around his limps and his torso. Overtop of this he wore shiny pieces of polished armour, one being a chest-plate, another two being curved shoulder guards, while the others covered his forearms, shins, and the backs of his hands overtop of the fingerless gray/brown gloves he wore.

Hanging down his back from either shoulder in place of a cape was a long strip of cloth that reached almost to his ankles, also made from the same brown material that made up his clothing. Straps, belts, and buckles wrapped around his waist, one across this torso, and the others around his legs as well as the knee high brown leather boots he wore.

Quickly realizing what was happening around him, the strange man snapped open his eyes and scanned his surroundings. His eyes quickly became his most defining feature. Both his pupils and their surrounding irises were a deep milky white.

This man was blind.

But even with this usually obvious handicap, the man still looked straight at me as if he could see perfectly!

After a moment of looking between Alec and I and the many Replicators beside us, his gaze eventually turned to the two Mandalorians just off to his left.

"_You…_" he uttered immediately upon 'seeing' Jango. In a flash the strange blind man reached behind his right shoulder to a small holster built into the belt strap that crossed over his chest-plate. Grasping a familiar looking cylinder wrapped in overlapping straps of fabric, the man drew the device and clicked a small button built into the side of it. Just as I had been fearing, a humming green lightsaber blade three times longer than Yoda's snapped-hissed into existence.

"I would recognize your face anywhere, Jango Fett," the blind Jedi bit out, saying the bounty hunter's name with particular distain. Jango could only sneer as he grabbed Boba and pulled him out of the way, all while bringing his assassin's knife into a diagonal guard in front of him.

"Don't make this harder on yourself Jedi," he said smoothly, tensing his legs in readiness to spring.

"Oh shit," I said quietly as I watched the situation worsen.

"Hold! Both of you!" an aged voice suddenly boomed. Both the Jedi and Mandalorian blinked before turning toward the one who had spoken. Yoda was pointing a commanding finger at them, his own lightsaber closing down in his other hand before he slipped it into his robes.

"Master Yoda?" the blind Jedi asked in confusion, having not noticed the other Jedi a moment ago.

"Away put your weapon Master Kota, you are amongst friends here, not enemies," the smaller Master ordered fiercely. General Rahm Kota, one of the main protagonists from the video game _Star Wars the Force Unleashed_, turned back to face Jango, his blind eyes regarding the bounty hunter with unhidden contempt.

By his body language alone I could tell that the old man wasn't going to budge unless Jango put his weapon down first.

"Jango, for the sake of continued peace aboard this ship," I said to him, almost imploringly as I nodded my head down to indicate his knife. Jango looked over at me briefly before staring back at Kota for a silent moment.  
"Sure, why not. I haven't been paid to spill any blood here today," he finally said sardonically with a light shrug before flipping his knife around and sliding it back into the holster under his sleeve. Kota didn't say anything, only regarding Jango for another moment before pressing his thumb against the button on his hilt, closing down his lightsaber before returning it to the holster on the back of his shoulder.

I was about the give out a breath of relief when Haxon's voice abruptly cut through the air.  
"_Axel, I am detecting an un-authorized activation within the _Corsica_'s mainframe. It appears to be originating from a bizarre form of computer code the likes of which I have never seen before."_

I gave a small smirk before turning my gaze up toward the ceiling, knowing exactly what and who that computer code was.  
'_Now its time for the forth and final candidate.'_

"Show yourself, we know you're there," I said out loud to the vacant air.

Everyone turned toward me, some in confusion while the rest held looks of anticipation. After a short pause, a blue light shone down from a small hole in the ceiling.

Before it could reach out and fully touch the surface of the tabletop, a massive glowing rendition of the Milky Way galaxy materialized over top of us, casting out a brilliant multi-coloured glow that illuminated all of the immediate area before us!

Everyone lowered their arms and partially dropped their mouths at the sheer beauty of the hologram floating just over our heads.

"Fascinating," Data whispered in awe, now deciding that he might as well lower his phaser since none of us had tried to attack him during this entire introduction.

"Aye, now there's n' eye opener for you," Scotty said to himself while gazing up at the marvelous spectacle, although he decided to still keep his phaser loosely pointed at me.

"So that's where they keep the _Corsica_'s Galaxy Map, right above the conference table," I stated in realization, my eyes flicking from one end of the galaxy to the other, picking out and recognizing all the specific areas I remembered from the _Normandy_'s map back in the game. I could see it all: The Artemis Tau Cluster, the Horse Head Nebula, I could even make out the long patch of stars where the Sol system would be located.

However as we all continued to gaze upon the slowly spinning map, it suddenly began to flicker and distort before abruptly vanishing from sight. Before anyone could ask what had happened, a four-foot tall humanoid figure materialized hovering before us, using the Galaxy Map's holo-projector to broadcast his appearance visually.

This hologram was depicted in the image of a young man adorned in slim but blocky plates of armour, with greaves, gauntlets, a torso piece, and a large helmet-like mantle that covered the top portion of his head. His entire form was bathed in blue light, including his skin, but I could easily tell that the dozens of circuit-wire designs that snaked their way up and around his body and along his armour cared a blue luminescence of their own.

The holo-man took a brief look at the others before bringing his to me, looking down on me with an unmistakable caution.

"_Alright, I'm here. Now would you mind telling me just what in the Grid's name is going on?"_ the man demanded down to me, his strong jaw flaring wider as he seemingly tightened his virtual muscles in combat readiness.

"You gotta by kidding!" Alec burst out with joy, lowering his blaster and dropping his guard completely. Turning to me the Guardian quickly pointed up to the floating holo-man with pure child-like glee in his face.

"_TRON_? TRON is the A.I.?!" he asked in that same manner, pointing even more enthusiastically up at the Video Game Warrior from the Grid, displayed before us in the spitting image of Bruce Boxleitner, the actor who had portrayed him in the cult classic of the same name.

"Eh, lad! Why don't you stop flapping yur' gums for a minut' and answer the man's question. Who are you, an' where the hell are we?!" Scotty's gruff voice interrupted angrily, causing both of us to snap to attention.

Turning back to look at me, Alec only shrugged while giving a sweep of his hand to all of the people surrounding us, both the new and the already acquainted.  
"Well, the League is set…" he began to me before looking directly back at the expectant faces of our new arrivals.

"I think…"

Stepping forward until I had pulled myself back in front of my chair, I sat myself down comfortably while giving an offering gesture toward the chairs that were closest to our newest guests.

"Gentlemen, my name is Lieutenant Axel Sorenson. If you would all just calm down, put your weapons away, and take a seat, I would be glad to tell you a tale that you are _NEVER_ going to believe," I said to each and every person looking at me.

Our moment to tell them all the truth had finally come.

As each person looked at each other, cautious but at the same time genuinely curious about what I was going to tell them, Alec plopped himself back down in the chair beside me, nonchalantly propping his jackboots back up on the table's surface and crossing them at the ankles once again.

"Now this I cannot wait to hear," he stated openly, his massive trademark grin spread wide across his face as all of new additions to the crew slowly began to sit down around the table, each of them eyeing me cautiously but listening keenly to my words.

**And I think this is a good enough place to end our newest chapter. I know I know, it didn't really have any action in it and was pretty much all talking. Trust me everyone, if you found this one boring then you would have torn your hair out with the other 3 versions I had to try before coming up with this one. Those were easily over a hundred times more boring than this!**

**But even though it was the most talkative and un-explosive one to date, it is the filler chapter that's really going to start the roller-coaster rolling. Because of this chapter, we now have the plot set up for space battles, armies clashing, dogfights, and who knows what else I can cook up from what was introduced here!  
So consider this chapter a necessary evil, and keep your eyes peeled for the next installment that'll have us seeing what's been happening in the wake of Axel's escape, as well as delve a little deeper into the mysterious Lord Viraden and what his plans are for the Mass Effect Galaxy! MUHAHAHAHAHA! **


	13. You Can't Handle The Truth!

**So, since that last filler chapter is out of the way, lets see what's been happening back on the Citadel with the rest of our characters, and learn what Lord Viraden plans to do after he finds out his attempt to eliminate Shepard has failed.**

A loud metallic clap rang throughout the dull grey interior of one of C-Sec Academy's many interrogation rooms. This was followed by another, and another, each resonating as an object was placed down in a line onto a shiny steel table set up in the middle of the room.  
Above it was a single large light set up in the middle of the ceiling, illuminating everything below it with a deep yellow/orange glow.

The objects in question were: a standard issue C-Sec Kessler pistol, a more heavily modified pistol of an unknown make, a samurai katana encased in a partially blackened and scratched sheath, all soon to be followed by an immaculately reconstructed flintlock pistol with gleaming brass fittings and firing mechanisms placed around a thoroughly cleaned and restored dark wooden frame.

As each weapon was placed on the table, Bruce and Steve Irwin both flinched noticeably and closed their eyes with annoyed frowns, the loud noise causing their throbbing headaches to flare again. The Turian storekeeper sat with several thick medical bandages wrapped around sections of his torso underneath what was left of his bloodied business suit, helping his body to heal the various injuries he'd taken to his chest during his fight against the Xenomorphs in the Battle for the Market Corridor, which ordinary medi-gel had unfortunately not been strong enough to fix entirely.  
On the Turian's left, Irwin sat with his elbows propped up on the edge of the table and his hands folded over each other in front of his face. _His_ injuries had been less severe than Bruce's, allowing C-Sec medics to heal the cuts and gashes he'd taken to his forearms and other areas of his body with ease.

However his usually well-dressed attire was in shambles. The rolled up sleeves of his white dress shirt were torn and peppered with black soot and grime, along with more than a few caked on bloodstains thanks to his before mentioned injuries. His black designer vest was still in mostly good condition, but did hold a few noticeable tears from where explosive shards of shrapnel had gone shooting past his sides. There was also a pink tenser-bandage tightly woven around the wrist and palm of his left hand, holding together a sprain that he hadn't known he'd developed until a short while ago.

Across from them, Lieutenant Bailey sat quietly with his back to the room's large two-way-mirror that spanned across the width of the far wall, closely examining the repaired flintlock in his hands, both of which were incased in white latex gloves to keep from contaminating the evidence. Behind him a Salarian and an Asari agent stood guard at his flanks, silently regarding the Australian and Turian with cold glares.

"_Alexandre Henri…_" the older officer muttered curiously to himself, rubbing a thumb across the ancient name imprinted into the small brass plate fitted to the side of the pistol's frame. After another moment of silent examination, Bailey shrugged to himself before bringing his eyes away from the weapon and placing it down on the table, causing one last clap to sound out.

Right on queue Irwin and Bruce both cringed with a groan of discomfort, followed by Irwin scrunching his one good eye even tighter and Bruce deeply rubbing his forehead plates to dispel the splitting migraine going through his skull.

"Forgive me Mr. Bailey, but could you please stop doing that? My associate and I _are_ still trying to recover from the blast of an Inferno grenade," Irwin asked Bailey humourlessly, his voice barely above a whisper to keep from hurting himself.

"One of us more than the other…" Bruce muttered without looking at anyone, his hand still moving across his forehead.

In the beginning, after Axel had made his escape and C-Sec had come to question them about their ordeal, they hadn't felt anything. But soon after once their adrenaline highs began to fade away, they had started to feel the toll that the blasts from Bruce's Inferno grenades had taken on them. Having started as an annoying ring in their ears, hours later the two were now trying to fight off a constant hammering against the insides of their craniums, one that was only made worse by any loud noises or raised voices.

"You two have got a lot of bigger problems on your hands than just a couple of headaches," Bailey said before raising his own hand toward the Salarian agent behind him, his palm open in readiness to receive something. Without a word the agent passed him an activated OSD pad.

"I beg your pardon?" Irwin asked politely, his demeanor and voice giving off the façade of ignorance.

"It says here you gentlemen are in for: Aiding and enabling the escape of a wanted criminal, providing arms to wanted criminal along with any currency he may have generated from selling you items of unknown origin, and ohhhhh yeah…receiving stolen C-Sec property, _also_ from said wanted criminal," Bailey began reading off from the OSD's glowing yellow screen in a deliberately casual but sarcastic voice before looking back up at the two.

Immediately both the Australian and the Turian jerked forward, their faces livid.  
"Are you knockin' us around mate?!" Irwin barked as he stabbed his left hand down on to the surface of the table, his heavy accent coming through even thicker with his enraged tone.

"Do we look like we just came back from enabling the escape of a wanted criminal?!" Bruce added in angrily, swishing a taloned hand between himself and his partner-in-crime, giving particular indication to their bloodstained attires and visible injuries.

A second of silence went by before the pair's anger quickly slipped away, allowing the painful reality of what they had just done to sink in, literally.

Irwin gave a sudden gasp, his eye wedging shut and his right hand clamping around his bandaged wrist, the sprain in his joint flaring in response to the harsh movement he'd just put it through. While he slowly reclined back in his seat, next to him Bruce had begun to groan lowly, his hands either firmly cradling his head or massaging the ridges along the lengths of his head-fringes. Both of them were now suffering greatly after having raised their voices to that extreme, causing their throbbing headaches to flare almost to the breaking point.

As Irwin gently rubbed his aching wrist and Bruce unceremoniously slumped forward, laying his head facedown onto the tabletop and looking like a pub regular going through one of the worst hangovers of his life in the process, Bailey merely looked at the two of them with an amused expression, one that was almost shared between his two stoic guards.

"I'd keep my temper in check if I were you, it'd keep me from hurting myself."

"The _point_ is lieutenant, these charges against us are outrageous. No doubt some bludger down at your Academy's investigative department gave a bodgy report without first examining the evidence, or the circumstances of what actually happened back in my store," Irwin retorted back at Bailey, the pain from his wrist causing him to make use of some of his home-country's older slang words to show his displeasure in a more amicable fashion.

Now it was Bailey's turn to get angry, for after Irwin finished speaking he leaned forward aggressively.

"Oh really? Then how bout' you explain to me why you let a known terrorist waltz right into your establishment and sell you two clearly stolen C-Sec firearms?" he began before snatching the modified pistol from the table and holding it up for the two detainees to see.

"One of which was MINE!" he barked out before slamming his former weapon back down.  
"AHHOWW!" Both storekeepers cried in unison, writhing in pain at the sound of the gun smacking against the metal surface. Bruce with his head still face down on the table clamped both hands onto either side of it and began rubbing at his ringing ear-sections desperately. Irwin had his eye tightly closed again and was semi-waving his hands out before himself in a sign of surrender.

"Alright, alright…" he hissed at the lieutenant before lifting his good hand and pressing it deeply against his right temple. After dispelling his renewed migraine somewhat, the Ausse sighed while giving a deliberate shrug.

"At the time we didn't know he was a terrorist, he came in with a batch of weapons and a large collection of interesting items to sell and made us an offer. He only gave his last name and it was a mutually profitable exchange, how were we suppose to know he was a bloody rampaging maniac?"

"And the fact that he was carrying these kinds of items on his _person_ didn't bother you in the slightest?" Bailey asked with an incredulously cocked eyebrow.

Irwin scowled before leveling his voice to a calmer tone, albeit with a noticeable increase in effort.

"I'm a stout collector of rare antiquities first and a seller of weapons second Mr. Bailey. You can look at my various licenses if you wish; you'll find all of the necessary credentials that give me and my various associates full authority to buy and sell not only any artifacts that come my way, but also a vast range of weapons that are brought in to me by both official and private parties."

"Oh believe me we have, and while we were at it we also found a few interesting items while combing through the wreckage of your store," said Bailey before picking up the OSD again and tapping a small button on its keyboard. The screen flicked to a list of some kind, with each item on it being given a detailed description and a quantity number.

"I suppose you're going to try and tell me that your licenses allow you to possess: 25 M5-Phalanx pistols, a model that's only barely gone into mass production, one of which was found to be unaccounted for at the scene…" Bailey began citing off from the list, casting deliberate glances back at the Australian. Irwin closed his eye again and deflated heavily back in his seat, knowing he'd now been caught red-handed in one of his 'questionable' business ventures.

"A dozen or so Spectre issue assault rifles, snipers, and shotguns, all of which are legally restricted to C-Sec and Council affiliates only," the lieutenant added in after that.

"_And_ we also found the chard remains of a military grade Batarian mini-gun of a make and model that was outlawed nearly five years ago by both the Council and the Alliance Department of Defense, making it doubly illegal to possess within Council space."

"We were able to get a permit for that," Bruce's slightly muffled voice countered quickly, speaking into the table as he raised his index talon up into the air without lifting his head from its shiny surface.

"Lieutenant, if you'll allow me to explain…" Irwin began in a gentlemanly business like manner, trying to soften up their jailer into a more accepting mood, but Bailey wouldn't have it.

"You're an arms smuggler Mister Irwin, making you a likely supplier for the majority of the organized gangs roaming around this sector of space, and a very possible accessory to organized tomb raiding and grave robbery on the galactic scale," he stated coldly while leaning back and folding his arms, his straight as an arrow tone leaving little room for argument.

This accusation caused Bruce to abruptly stop massaging his head and slowly sit up straight, shooting his friend a quick glance as he did. Irwin threw his arms out with a nod, arching his mouth in agreement.

"You got me somewhat on that first one Bailey, I am the unflinching supplier of weapons, vehicles, ships, and armours to a specific pool of individuals that I have painstakingly built up over the years. Many of my _thoroughly_ reviewed and carefully checked out clients are of the more rogue and rebel type who end up burning out or breaking most of what they buy within the first few months of purchase, while the rest of them are elements within various governments across the galaxy that have openly propositioned me to supply them and their various interests with my particular kind of merchandise, including members of the Alliance itself," he began explaining, gesturing over to Bailey and his OSD as he made mention of the Earth government.

"However, I am _not_ a tomb raider nor am I a supplier of galactic crime syndicates. I am a vocal activist for the preservation of history and ancient cultures; the artifacts that my associates bring to me are either found on decrepit archeological digs or extracted from volatile conflict zones before they're either destroyed or stolen to be used as petty cash by some nameless combatant. _That_ is the main reason why I supply weapons in the first place so that my trusted clients will have the means to save these relics before they are so shamelessly destroyed," Irwin's voice was beginning to rise again, his anger at having to explain himself seeping into his tone. Bailey was undeterred by this display, and instead opted to lean forward and pick up Alexandre Henri's flintlock.

"You purchased artifacts from an unknown man, not one of your 'clients', who just happened to be carrying them on himself when he showed up at your front door. Then you went and sold him some of the most advanced military hardware our governments have ever designed! Your words are proving to be a far-cry from your actions Mister Irwin!"

The lieutenant had begun raising his voice also, and it was starting to flare the two storeowner's headaches again, but Irwin's temper was flaring faster and making his senses dulled down to the pain the offending noises were causing him.

"That isn't how it happened! We paid him in exchange for his artifacts _yes_, but when the power went out and things started blowing up after those serpent krittars began slithering out of the damn walls, he decided to take the opportunity to steal whatever struck his fancy. He held us both at gunpoint and ordered us to handover an M-5, several of the Spectre weapons, and the key to my hover car before blowing a hole through my wall and making his escape!"

Despite his genuine surging anger Irwin was lying through his teeth, desperately trying to play the part of the offended wealthy victim to hopefully throw off their interrogators. He knew that if C-Sec found out this early on that he and Bruce had not only bought most of Axel's items _after_ they had found out he was the subject of a station wide manhunt, but also that they had indeed helped and enabled him to make his escape, they'd both be thrown into the deepest darkest Academy holding cell for an indefinite amount of time.

Or worse, if either one of them cracked under Bailey's pressure they might let slip about Axel's intended rendezvous that he had wanted to set up with them in the future, the very one in which he had promised to explain how he was a being from another galaxy with apparent telekinetic powers.

If C-Sec got there hands on that kind of information they might plan to use both Irwin and Bruce as bait to lure Axel and his party into a trap!

"We know you helped him fight off those creatures in the middle of that attack! You enabled and supplied him with the means he used to make his escape from this station!" Bailey barked, repeatedly jabbing the barrel of the flintlock still in his hand at Irwin's face. Now Bruce decided to get in on the argument, his temper flaring enough to dull the pain of his own headache.

"You're not even listening to us! We did not help that guy get away!" the Turian said with a jab of his talon onto the table, slightly scratching its surface in the process.  
Bailey turned his glaring eyes over to Bruce, still holding the flintlock like he was ready to stab somebody with it.

"I _would_ if you two would quit trying to bullshit us! Give me the truth and maybe we'll be on our way to me believing you!" Bailey shouted, looking between the two of them viciously. Behind him the Salarian and Asari were looking at each other in confusion, clearly stunned at how this interview had turned into a three-way shouting match. Irwin slammed his fist down onto the table (his right one this time), lunging up to his feet and semi-leaning forward with his left index finger pointed at _Bailey's_ face.

"Obviously YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" the former Major began roaring near the top of his lungs, when suddenly the mechanical opening sound of the sliding door built into the back of the room behind the two detainees caused everyone to freeze and turn their heads.

A young Turian agent with purple-ish grey skin and white tribal markings stood in the middle of the open doorway, his eyes wide and his head slowly looking between the enraged postures of the two older men leaning across either side of the table. His right hand was raised with his index talon extended, as if he had just been about to say something before being caught off guard by the scene in front of him.  
After a moment of silence he regained himself and spoke directly to Bailey.

"Uhh…lieutenant, their attorney's here, they've made bail," he said with a jab of his thumb toward the open corridor behind him, his voice betraying the same confused expression that his face did.

"Finally!" Irwin announced loudly, raising his arms toward the ceiling in mock praise before flopping back down into his seat. For a moment the Australian regarded Bailey with a smug smirk, but that was quickly replaced by a very pained expression and a deep moan before he closed his eye and began firmly massaging his temple again, his headache coming back with a vengeance now that his anger rush had started to leave him. Bruce was experiencing the same thing, giving similar groaning sounds as he put an elbow on the table and cradled the center of his forehead in his palm.

Giving his own smirk at the duo's agony, Bailey looked back up at the agent that had relayed the news.

"Fine, we weren't getting much out of this anyway," he uttered before getting up from his seat and gesturing to the two agents behind him.

"Take the rest of this down to Forensics, have them go over it with a fine-tooth-comb, look for anything that can link us to Axel to see if our databases have something on him."  
With a nod from both of them, the agents gathered up the C-Sec pistols and samurai sword before making their way out of the interrogation room, with Bailey casually following behind them. At the mention of their using the weapons to learn about Axel, Irwin's eye suddenly opened in concern. As Bailey was walking past on his way out of the room, Irwin reached out and grabbed him by the forearm.

"Mister Bailey, aside from those two firearms being C-Sec hardware, the rest of the transaction I had with Axel was before he revealed himself to be a terrorist and was therefore technically legal. By Council law that sword and that pistol are still _my_ property," the storeowner said with a nod down to Alexandre's flintlock. Bailey easily pulled his arm free before lifting the pistol for both Irwin and Bruce to see.

"These items are evidence in a C-Sec investigation, _Mister Irwin_. For all we know about where they came from they could easily have belonged to some antiques collector out in the next star system before they came into Axel's possession," Bailey stated with an absent hand gesture toward the open doorway.

"But…" Irwin began.

"If it checks out that they're weren't stolen in anyway by Axel or his accomplices, then you _might_ get to have them back. Until then, these artifacts are _my_ property, and they'll be staying under _my_ care for the time being. You boys have a pleasant evening," Bailey said to them with a stiff nod before marching his way out of the interrogation room, leaving the two store-clerks sitting at the table.

Once the door closed behind the lieutenant, Irwin sagged forward and buried his face into his hands with a tired sigh. Bruce gave a small scoff before looking over at the Australian out of the corner of his eye.

"'You can't handle the truth'? I can't believe you actually said that," he stated before following with a few amused chuckles. Irwin gave his own scoff at the thought, pulling his hands away and leaning back lazily in his seat.

"I thought it fit the moment nicely. And in a strange way it got my point across just fine." Suddenly the door opened again and an older, partially bald man with strong features wearing a very immaculate and well-tailored ash-grey business suit came in to the room, a shiny black leather briefcase held firmly in his hand.

"Sorry I'm late Steven, traffic was murder," the man said casually in a low soft-spoken voice, his every word touched by a very faint and oddly sinister Irish sounding accent.

"Tom! It's about time, we were running out of stories to spin," Irwin said to his attorney as Tom moved silently around to the opposite side of the table and gently lay his briefcase down on its surface.

* * *

After leaving the interrogation room Bailey turned left and made his way through the innards of C-Sec Academy, soon emerging from his current corridor out into the Academy's main entrance area depicted frequently throughout the Mass Effect game!

Nodding at the many agents and guards on duty Bailey crossed the massive atrium without a word, walking past the tall brightly glowing elevator shaft set up in the middle of the room that reached far up into the ceiling, the one connecting to the private docking pier reserved for the now famous _SSV Normandy._

Swiftly he walked around to the back of the shaft before stepping down a short staircase into a low ceilinged and darkly lit corridor. Continuing down this way, he came to another hallway that led deeper into other C-Sec areas not show in Mass Effect. For a while Bailey walked down corridors and through the mostly blue-lit halls of the Academy, passing by many more agents and other C-Sec officials all making their way to their various assignments or carrying reports from one department to the other.

Eventually after moving into the areas restricted to C-Sec employees only, he came to an archway that opened up into a massive far reaching office space with a slightly domed ceiling illuminated by the usual deep soft blue lights of the Academy, one that was filled with various desks and holographic computer terminals placed intermittently all around it.  
Dozens of C-Sec agents and officers of nearly every Council race moved about this area, crossing in between the aisles of desks or operating the various terminals to accordance with whatever work they were doing. The scent of cigarette smoke hung loosely in the air, with small swirls of the stuff coming from several officers who were taking the moment to puff up at their desks. Luckily for the rest of the non-smokers in the office most of the harmful fumes were being quickly sucked out of the air by the advanced overhead filtration systems built into the vents and air ducts crisscrossing the ceiling.

This setup created an image very reminiscent of a 20th century Earth Police Precinct, with a healthy mix of futuristic alieness to it.

Moving easily in-between the ranks of desks and brushing past the various people moving in opposite directions to him, Bailey eventually came upon and sat himself down behind a curving L shaped one near the office's far wall.  
A massive flat screen stretched nearly twenty feet across this said wall, one that was currently showing a glowing broadcast from the Citadel's main news-channel.

On the screen, the image of a very stoic faced Executor Pallin stood behind a conference podium with several large and gruff looking Turian C-Sec agents standing at attention in a line behind him. Just to his right, Ciatra F'Loson stood silently with her hands clasped behind her back and her hard gaze focused on something out of view of the camera!

At the moment random bright lights and white flashes were reflecting off of the agents' armours as dozens of reporters and journalists arranged before Pallin on a lower level took snap photos of him and his entourage.

"_At this time we do not have any leads as to where the terrorists may have gone or what their next intended target is to be. We are advising all Council worlds to be on the lookout for persons matching their descriptions and to…"_ Pallin was saying to the assembled people, raising a hand to calm down their constant chatter and annoying camera flashes.

But his words only seemed to be getting them more riled up, for as soon as he mentioned the part about not knowing where Axel and his band had gone to the horde of people began surging forward, holding up microphones or tapping into their omni-tools to make their hovering pod-cams fly closer toward the podium.

"Now let the media fire begin…" Bailey muttered to himself as he reached over and placed Alexandre Henri's flintlock onto his sparsely covered desk, peeling off his latex gloves and throwing them into a nearby disposal unit before leaning back in his chair to watch the rest of the broadcast.

Pallin was waving his hand back and forth, repeatedly trying to say something over the tidal wave of garbled questions and statements coming from the reporters, when abruptly a very articulate voice rose above the chatter.

"_Executor! Excuse me Executor Pallin!"_ the voice demanded. After a moment of getting everyone to finally quiet down somewhat, Pallin turned his attention toward the one who had spoken. A darker skinned woman controlling a floating pod-cam via an active omni-tool snaked her way through the wall of bodies until she was almost directly in front of the main podium.

"_Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani _(Damn that's a long name)_, Westerlund News…"_ the woman identified herself with a wave up to him as she came closer.

"Oh no…" Bailey moaned, reaching up with his metal casted arm and pinching the bridge of his nose. He'd seen a few of the reports this lady had done in the past, the outcomes of which had never been good when they'd been on a subject she'd wanted to tear apart.

"_Executor, would you mind telling us just how exactly the terrorists were able to escape the Citadel? Even when the _Destiny Ascension_ and its escort fleet were brought in to keep them from using the Mass Relay?"_ Khalisah asked, her question being followed by a hurricane of agreeing shouts and similar demands being thrown at the Executor from the rest of the assembly. Pallin was silent for a long moment amidst the chaos, he and the rest of C-Sec Academy knowing full well that there was no explanation for how the terrorists' stolen Corvette had been able to not only outmaneuver half of the entire Citadel Defense Fleet, but also escape into Council space without having needed to use Widow's Mass Relay at all.

Bailey could only groan again while still pinching his nose, the sound of Pallin giving rehearsed damage control statements to the awaiting ears of the Citadel was giving him almost as bad a headache as Steve Irwin and his Turian colleague had experienced back when he'd been shouting at them.

"I'm guessing your interview didn't go over any better Bailey?" asked a young female voice from off to his right. Bailey gave a scoff before pulling his hand away and turning toward an absolutely gorgeous Human woman in her mid to late twenties sitting in the adjacent desk across from him.

"No Moira, even as much as I thought we would we didn't come close to nabbing them for Axel's escape. The evidence isn't conclusive enough, so it's now boiled down to our word against theirs," Bailey responded with a tired shake of his head.

Moira Kealoha was an experienced C-Sec agent coming up on her fifth year on the force. She was her department's star analyst and tech specialist, able to decode and translate any encrypted piece of technology or repair completely trashed security modules that could spell freedom or conviction for any suspect that C-Sec might be investigating.

A descendent of Hawaiian origin, Moira was a living image of the famed beauty of her people. With creamy olive skin, flowing shoulder length black hair tied up in a ponytail, almost shimmering green/blue eyes, and a drop-dead figure kept toned by a rigorous training regiment, she could have easily entered and won a national swimsuit competition simply by showing up. Many had been mistaken by her looks into thinking that she had simply been hired to help bolster C-Sec's image on their Human side, all of them being proven wrong within weeks of her recruitment.

Moira was currently a two-year grand-champion in the Academy's long range handgun tournaments and held record high scores in the annual explosives-course review.

So if anyone ever somehow managed to get under her easygoing good natured skin, she would easily be able to drill them between the eyes at 60 yards with her sidearm or build an IED from scrap metal and stick it under their chair the next time they looked the other way.

Many-a-man, and a few women too, had been inadvertently charmed by her natural persona and killer looks, leading her to be hit-on at least several times a week. In the beginning it had been somewhat fun, but after the first three years on the job it had gotten so bad and annoying enough that she finally decided to request a transfer to the purely alien filled departments of the Academy. She had already established a solid reputation for excellence by then and was welcomed almost unanimously with open arms. It didn't stop the occasional flirtatious Asari or Turian from stopping by her desk for a chitchat at coffee break every now and then, but at least now she didn't have nearly every guy in the office turning their head her way whenever she walked by.

Moira flashed a small glowing smile at Bailey before turning and nodding up to the image of Pallin.

"At least you're not up there having to explain to the entire Citadel how we screwed up so badly." Both of them gave a small chuckle at that optimistic view before they were suddenly interrupted by a pained cry and a wet sniff coming through a broken nose.

Turning their heads over to the source of the noise, they both saw Chellick sitting at an even smaller desk then theirs built into the wall underneath the large screen. At the moment the Turian had his head arched back and was holding his nose with his thumb and fore-talon, trying to put a piece of specially made medical tape across its plated bridge. Sniffing again, Chellick turned to Bailey with blue-rimmed black/green eyes, the pain in his nose making him tear up constantly.

"Whatever agony he's going through can't be anything compared to what I'm having to deal with right now, oww!" Chellick said grumpily with a point of his talon to the screen above him, cringing soon after as he tried applying the tape again.

Moira bowed her eyebrows upward slightly and bared a portion of her teeth as she cringed, showing that she could only sympathize with the sight in front of her.

"At least the Turian Counselor was able to make Pallin only put you two on desk duty rather than fire your asses outright," she commented to both of them. Bailey on the other hand could only frown and gesture toward his partner with both hands in confusion.

"What're you doing?"

After finally adjusting the tape to where he wanted it, Chellick wiped away some of the tears from the deep purple/blue area around his eyes thanks to the bruising that the breaking of his nose had caused.

"The doctors say that some of the bone in my nose actually fractured off into certain areas, and that before I can get an appointment for surgery to correct it I need to make sure it all stays as set as possible to keep it from moving any further."

"Meaning he's going to be stuck like this for another day or so," Moira added in reluctantly right before another loud "OW!" came out of the Turian lieutenant. Shaking his head with a faint smile, Bailey swiveled his chair around to face Moira directly.

"Were you at least able to get something from those video logs we sent you?" he asked. Moira gave a quick nod before tapping into the holographic terminal set up on her desk.

"I was able to get more then something, I got you the identities of your two other terrorists," she stated before imputing a final code and leaning back from the screen with her arms folded, gazing over her work proudly.  
Immediately Bailey and Chellick both bolted up from their seats and made their way around the collection of desks until they were standing behind Moira's chair at each of her sides, staring intently at her terminal.

Displayed across its surface was the poster image of a little green man wielding a blazing green energy-sword, similar to the one used by the strange alien that had helped Axel battle against Echo 1 and 2 in the Presidium park several hours ago. Beside this image was another one showing a large muscular Human wearing strange armour plates over a black and purple jumpsuit while also wearing a jetpack and wielding a pair of familiar silver pistols. From what both Chellick and Bailey had seen of the large faceless man that Alec had been carrying over his shoulder most of the time, the image on screen looked to be a pretty uncanny match.

"Okay so what are you showing us Kealoha? Who are these two?" Chellick asked down to Moira, giving one last involuntary sniff from his broken nose.

"Guys, this is the Jedi Master Yoda, and the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett," the tech specialist declared, pointing from one picture to the other.

An awkward pause permeated the air before both Chellick and Bailey looked down at the back of Moira's head.

"Meaninnnnnng…?" they drew out simultaneously, silently urging Moira to give them the full details.

Right away her eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly, as if she had just been insulted in one of the worst ways possible.

"Star Wars boys. STAR WARS. These two are from the Star Wars Saga," she stated to them emphatically, gesturing to the images with both hands before spinning around in her seat toward Bailey.  
"Armando are you telling me that you've never seen one of Humanity's _crowning_ cinematic achievements?" she asked of him, almost horrorstricken.

What most people didn't know about Moria, even her various boyfriends and many, _many_ dates, was that she was secretly a very passionate geek at heart especially when it came to Sci-Fi epics like Star Wars and Babylon 5. For her, to hear someone say that they had never seen, or even heard of Star Wars, was like hearing someone say they'd never heard of King Arthur or John Carter.

**And for YOU, the one reading this right now, if you've gone this long through this kind of a story and **_**you**_** haven't tried looking up John Carter by now, (and I'm talking about the books) then you suck and you're missing out!  
**

**Okay I'm done my little rant, keep on reading, don't let me slow you down.**

"I don't watch TV that much Moira, nor am I really into 20th century science-fiction, I'm already living my fill of it right now," Bailey retorted back firmly.

Moira cringed and dropped her jaw again, but this time it was much wider and made her look like she was trying to scream with no sound coming out. Her hand quickly slammed against her chest and clutched tightly to the area where her heart would be as she slightly fell backwards out of her seat, dramatically imitating the act of enduring a sudden violent heart attack for a moment before reverting to her normal self and sitting back up giggling madly.

After seeing Chellick's barely contained grin at this little show but Bailey's unimpressed cocked eyebrow, she calmed down and gave the older lieutenant a disarming smile to soften him up.

"Seriously though Bailey, you and I gotta talk after this," she said up to him mock-seriously before turning back to the pictures of Jango and Yoda.

"So wait, you believe that the other two members of Axel's group were actually characters taken from the mythos of the Star Wars movies?" Chellick asked with a frown.  
Bailey threw back his head and blew out an annoyed breath before turning away from the screen.  
"Moira, I'm all for playful jokes in the workplace until they keep officers from doing their jobs. When you _really_ have something give me a call," he said over his shoulder before making his way back to his desk.  
But right away Moira turned serious for real and began tapping frantically into the terminal's keyboard, bringing up multiple screens with various frozen pictures or recordings and others with small video clips taken from the Star Wars films themselves.

"Its true! Look, how do you explain a working lightsaber deflecting hundreds of rounds from a _Mantis_ cannon, or a small jetpack propelling a full grown man most likely weighing over two-hundred pounds into the air, or a pair of fully functioning blaster pistols," Moria listed off over to Bailey as he continued moving away. Leaning over her shoulder, Chellick's eyes flicked from each selected screen, soaking up all of the presented data.

"Holy crap. Uh…Bailey I think she may be on to something, you might wanna check this out." Sighing again, Bailey spun around on his heel and came back to the other two.

"You really expect me to believe that…" the lieutenant began saying before his gaze locked in on the screen images. Upon seeing them his words died in his throat and he instinctively leaned closer to insure that his eyes were working properly.

On the left side of the screen were many pictures of Yoda and Jango wielding their lightsaber or shooting their blasters in scenes taken from the movies, while on the right side placed directly beside them for comparison were many freeze-frame shots taken from the black and white vision of security cameras or Helmet-Cams belonging to some of the agents who had taken recordings during the horrific battle that had befallen the Market Corridor recently.  
Displayed in these hectic still-shots were grainy but unmistakable images of a shouting Yoda slicing and dicing into various Xenomorphs and an apparently revived Jango blasting several of the monstrous Aliens through the head with one of his silver blasters.

As Bailey looked back and forth between these two sets of pictures, unable to deny the striking similarities between them, his gaze drifted farther down the screen to four active video reels.

One showed Yoda leaping through the air within an ancient temple of some kind, whirling his green blade in intricate circles and deflecting a swarm of bright energy blasts coming at him from an attacking platoon of Imperial Clone Troopers. Below this was a video clip of Jango Fett battling against Obi-wan Kenobi on the rain slick platforms of Tipoca City on the stormy ocean planet of Kamino, taken from the second prequel movie known as _Attack of the Clones._ As Bailey watched Jango repeatedly fire his twin blaster pistols at the blue lightsaber wielding Jedi Master, the Mandalorian suddenly activated his jetpack and rocketed up into the storm-filled sky, soaring backwards while still firing his guns madly.

Turning to the right, the three of them all focused on two adjacent sets of active security camera footage that Moira had been able to salvage from a couple of damaged modules belonging to a camera taken from the Corridor and also a Dash-Cam from the wreckage of Bailey and Chellick's patrol car that had been shot down while chasing Axel and Alec through the Military Docking yards.

The one of Jango showed the bounty hunter still fighting in the Market Corridor, activating his jetpack and blasting vertically into the air to avoid being hit by a flying piece of floor plating. In another screen just above it next to the movie clip of Yoda, the camera recording taken from Bailey's totaled hover car was giving a clear picture of the little green creature leaping through the air in a front flip toward an open elevator cabin, whirling his lightsaber around his body and deflecting dozens of simultaneous thermal rounds being shot at him.

When played together at the same time these four clips looked 99% identical to each other, erasing any doubt in even Bailey's mind that the two other members of Axel's group had indeed been these same people from the Star Wars universe.

"All right, as strange as it sounds I'm willing to admit these men _might_ have been the same ones from your movies. But that still doesn't explain how they could've been pulled out of the world of a film and brought into ours, its ludicrous," Bailey stated to Moira with a small shake of his head after looking over the images one last time.

"You haven't seen nothing yet Bailey, if ludicrous is what you're after then get a load of this," she said before typing another request into the terminal.

The images of Yoda and Jango vanished from the screen, soon being replaced by a single large picture of a familiar robotic spider creature frozen in an attack pose.

"I overheard the descriptions you and your boys at the Docks gave about that strange horde of mechanical insects that suddenly joined up with Axel. So on a hunch I cross-referenced them with a few characters I know of from my private Sci-Fi collection. This little guy fit the likenesses to a T," Moira explained to the two officers before turning back and pointing to the bluish-grey spider. Chellick was already nodding his head the moment he saw the fearsome machine displayed on the screen.

"That's them alright, what exactly are they?" asked the Turian after bringing his eyes away from it.

"They're called Replicators, they're a race of self-replicating A.I. controlled machines from the 20th century TV-show _Stargate SG-1_," Moira explained informatively, her voice and manner concerning the subject sounding almost as cultivated as a fully licensed Ph. D explaining a highly complex scientific theory. Bailey opened his mouth to say something but was suddenly cut off my Chellick snapping his taloned fingers, as if having just come to a revelation.

"Wait, I've actually heard of these guys before! Yeah they were one of the main villains in the later seasons of _Stargate_, the ach-enemy of the Asgard and the machine race that could consume and re-utilize almost any technology they came across. I can't believe I didn't recognize them until now!" he stated with an oddly surprised smile.

Bailey slowly turned to the Turian with a very pointed glare before shaking his head with a gruff sigh; unable to believe he was now hearing this kind of geek-talk from Chellick.

"Hey, sometimes I watch episodes from old Human TV shows, once or twice Stargate just happened to be one of them," Chellick defended with a shrug.  
"Annnd if you guy's want something that's even more impossible, check this out. Remember that Iron Man suit F'Loson went chasing after over the Embassies…" Moira added back to the duo before typing into the terminal again. The picture of the Replicator spider disappeared and was replaced by a blurry but unmistakable shot of Axel's black and silver suit, freeze-framed at just the right moment as he blasted past an Embassy District security camera.

Beside this was another image of a similar, but purely silver Iron Man suit flying across a dark nighttime cityscape.

"It was almost an exact lookalike to the Mark II suit built by Tony Stark in the first live-action Iron Man movie made back in 2008," she finished with a nod to the screen.

"The Replicators must have built it for them, it's the only thing that can explain why nearly everything from that warehouse was…" Chellick began to both of them when suddenly Bailey's omni-tool materialized around his arm accompanied by a small beep.

"_Forensics to Lieutenant Bailey,"_ a Salarian voice came through the tool's speaker.

Bailey pressed a button on its keyboard and brought the microphone closer to his face.  
"Bailey here."

"_We've completed our analysis of the evidence you sent down sir. Unfortunately we weren't able to get anything more conclusive like DNA, but we were able to lift a partial fingerprint originating from the suspect's ring finger."_

Bailey looked up and nodded to Chellick and Moira, feeling a small surge of excitement well up in his chest.

"That makes sense. When I first saw him during the Ward D incident he was missing a portion of the glove that covered his right hand, which left his ring finger exposed," Bailey stated to the others before returning his attention to the omni-tool.

"Good work, transfer the print to Moira Kealoha's desk terminal and we'll handle it from there," the lieutenant ordered before shutting off the device, causing it to fade away in an instant.  
After a few seconds of silence Moira looked over her shoulder from her screen with a small smile.

"Got it, it's pretty clear for a partial so we'll have plenty to compare it to."

Bailey walked out from behind Kealoha's desk and stood before the large wall screen still showing the last half of Pallin's embarrassing news broadcast.

"Alright bring it up on the main screen and link in to the Citadel's supercomputer network, start sifting through all known Alliance files: criminal, civilian, and military, give me everything you can nab," Bailey said back to her as he folded his arms and stared at the screen.

Immediately the image of Pallin and F'Loson still withstanding the barrage of questions being thrown at them disappeared and was replaced by a partially complete Human fingerprint lit up in emerald green.

Beside this on the left side of the screen was a rapidly changing array of similar prints, all of them belonging to a long list of various people, from captured Terminus pirates all the way up to retired and accommodated Alliance captains.

While Moira ran Axel's print against all of these different files, Chellick moved around her desk until he was standing right beside Bailey.

"So what are we looking for Bailey?" Chellick asked while they both kept their gaze on the flashing prints and various names that appeared and then disappeared within the blink of an eye on the main screen.

"From our own experiences and from some of the eyewitness accounts given by our agents in the field, we know Axel's a trained expert in the use of firearms and hand-to-hand combat, _I_ wanna know where he learned those skills and who taught them to him," Bailey answered as he took a step closer, squinting up at the screen slightly after several interesting names popped up.

However after a few minutes of silent processing, in which Moira's link with the Citadel's vast networking capabilities ran through hundreds of thousands of names and profiles, the unthinkable happened.

The left side of the screen abruptly stopped searching and brought up a single line of flashing red text which stated in bold letters…

'NO MATCH FOUND'.

Chellick blinked in surprise while Moira leaned back in her seat and cocked an astonished eyebrow.

"Well…that's never happened before," she remarked out loud.

"No military records, employment transcripts, or even brushes with local law enforcements, he mustn't be from the Alliance then. Perhaps he was born on one of the outer colonies in the Traverse; try searching…" Bailey began. But before he could continue with that train-of-thought Chellick turned to him, a very deep faraway look in his eyes.

"Wait! Hold on a sec…" he said to Moira before turning and moving back over toward her while raising his left arm. With a curious look Moira leaned over toward Chellick while Bailey came around near his right side, also intent on learning what the Turian was now going on about.

With a flexing of his wrist Chellick activated his own omni-tool and began typing into its glowing keyboard, subsequently bringing up a small holo-screen with a series of jagged lines running through it.

After a few more button taps a small indicator appeared near the beginning of the group of lines with a short set of numbers hovering next to it. Looking down at Moira, Chellick semi sat himself on the outer edge of her desk and leaned forward so that his omni-tool was placed in between the three of them.

"This is a recording we took from the omni-tool of a Turian marine who was injured during a confrontation between Axel's group and another man who appeared just minutes before they made their escape. What you're about to hear just might give us a lead to the information we're looking for," Chellick said in a hushed voice to Moira, taking a quick look around himself to make sure none of the other agents and officers in the room were eavesdropping on them.

With the press of a button, the recording began playing, the jagged lines moving with each sound or change in pitch while the indicator began making its way down the width of the screen, the numbers on it quickly counting off the recording's duration.

_"Uhhhhhhhh…Axel. I'm drawing a __huge__ blank on this one. Who exactly is this guy?"_ came the almost indiscernible voice of the terrorist Alec, who had it not been for his direct questioning of Axel could have easily been mistaken _for_ Axel. Barely a second after this Axel himself spoke.

_"Second-Lieutenant Jarrod François, of the Canadian Royal 22e Régiment, Light Infantry 3rd Battalion out of Valcartier, Quebec. Graduated with honours, participated in multiple tours-of-duty in the Afghan theatre…" _

Hearing this caused Moira to do a double take, her brow wrinkling into a severe frown.

"What?" she stated up to Chellick in shock. But right away Chellick held up a talon to silence her.

"He gives more..." he said quietly, taking another look around to see if any of their coworkers were watching them.

_"…Shot and killed by friendly-fire while in the Kandahar Province on September 25__th__, 2010, due to a violent psychological breakdown that turned him against his own unit and endangered the lives of many surrounding civilians."_ At that Chellick tapped another button that paused the recording. Both Moira and Bailey were looking at each other with widened eyes, now seeing where the Turian was going with this.

"You both heard that. September 25th, _2010_! Axel was referring to an incident that happened over 170 years ago!" Chellick said lowly, looking between both of them with his head partially bowed over his omni-tool.

Bailey frowned at this, both in contemplation but also in disapproval.

"Hold on Chellick, are you trying to say you think Axel might be some sort of time travelling soldier from the early 21st century?" Immediately Chellick gave a small shrug with a half-hearted, almost indecisive nod.

"After everything we saw during that chase Bailey, can we really rule out anything at this point? Levitating trees, men turning into Minotaurs and giant gorillas, strange creatures suddenly dropping in wherever Axel happens to be…" he began listing off before turning and gesturing over to Moira.

"And a horde of 'good' Replicators charging to the rescue and building an _Iron Man_ suit out of spare parts!" Bailey cocked an eyebrow, flicking his eyes down slightly in thought before giving a small nod.

"Everything we've seen today _has_ been on the more incredible side. You really think time-travel could somehow be involved in this too?" he asked up to Chellick.

But before the Turian could answer, Moira spoke from her seat.

"Actually Bailey, Chellick may be right." Both lieutenants turned their gazes back to her.

"How so?" Bailey asked.

"I was born near Minnesota back on Earth. Because of where we lived when I was a little girl I met a lot of Canadians travelling back and forth across the border. Sometimes a few of them turned out to be senior Army retirees," Moira began explaining.

"When I managed to speak to a few of them they would always tell me stories of their military careers and each of the units they had been assigned to during their heydays."

Both Chellick and Bailey were now frowning at each other.

"Moira what does this have to do with Axel…" Chellick asked. But with a wide grin and a raised hand Moira held him off.

"I'm getting to that. So one time when I asked a few of these retirees about their histories, one of them told me about how he used to serve in an Infantry Battalion of the Canadian Royal 22e Régiment." Now Chellick and Bailey were beginning to get the picture, both of them inclining closer and listening intently to Moira's every word.

"The Royal 22e Régiment was still a part of the Canadian Armed Forces well after Humanity discovered the Prothean Archives on Mars, and even after we began developing our first FTL Drives. It wasn't until 2149, when most of Earth's major nations came together and signed the Systems Alliance Charter that the Régiment was assimilated into the new Alliance Navy and Planetary Defense Forces, pretty much erasing it of name and title." Bailey was looking off into negative space again, putting the pieces of this new information together.

"So that would mean…" he began as he looked back at her, but Moira was eager to finish this part.

"Even if Axel was lying about the incident 170 years ago, in age wise if he really was a part of the Canadian Régiment before it faded away that would still leave him in his late fifties to early sixties _at least_!" Moira stated.

"I saw the footage you two captured of him during the manhunt, and I can tell you right now he barely looked to be in his mid-_twenties_," she finished with a serious nod to the both of them. Bailey's eyebrows shot up as he snapped his head back to Chellick.

"Could it be possible? Could Axel really be visitor from the past?" he asked to both of them quickly, flicking his head back and forth between his two colleagues, even _his_ strict no-nonsense mentality cracking open to the idea of it. As if in answer to his question Chellick lifted his still active omni-tool slightly and tapped a code into the keyboard. The holo-screen above his arm shimmered slightly as the recording of Axel and Alec fast-forwarded to a specific part near its end.

"I think he may have done more then just travel through time, listen to this," he said before pressing the play button again.

_"In case you hadn't noticed Jarrod, we're not on Earth anymore. This is the Mass Effect universe, the universe that I've been brought to to complete a great quest…"_ Axel's voice spoke out from the tool's speakers again before being cut off by Chellick pausing it again.

Both Moira and Bailey's mouths dropped open and they semi-jerked toward the Turian.

"ANOTHER UNIV…!" they both almost shouted at the same time.

"Shhhhickh!" Chellick hissed viciously at them while frantically putting a talon to his lips or making a sharp cutting gesture with his right hand to shut them up before they could say another word.

Quickly looking around the office, Chellick smiled widely and nodded as best he could to dissuade the many glances now being thrown at the trio from several agents that had been witness to that sudden outburst. After waiting for most of the watching eyes to turn back and continue with whatever it was they had been doing before being interrupted, Chellick leaned back toward Bailey and Moira with his head bowed low again.

"_Now_ do you see why I've been trying to keep this whole conversation more on the quiet side?" Chellick whispered seriously to the other two, still periodically glancing over his shoulder for any onlookers.

"So Axel could not only be from a time far back in Earth's history, but also from another universe as well? Is that even scientifically possible?" Moira whispered up to Chellick before addressing both of them, leaning closer in her chair with her elbows propped on her knees to help keep any others from hearing.

"Remember these are Axel's words, they came straight from his mouth so there has to be some kind of merit behind them. And besides if you're talking scientifically, scientific communities from many races throughout the galaxy have been presenting the theory of alternate realities and universes for hundreds of years now. The idea of a universe different from our own isn't the issue we're trying to figure out here, its how a bunch of people, several of whom have been seemingly brought from a set of _fictional_ universes, could have crossed the threshold into _our_ universe…and _why_," Chellick explained clearly and rather logically despite the subject of the matter.

However right away Bailey turned to him with an indicative hand gesture.

"But they _know_ things Chellick, both Axel _and_ Alec know things about this galaxy that no person or creature from an alternate universe should. When I first ran into him Axel recognized me just by hearing my _voice_, he identified and understood who I was without ever having met me before," Bailey whispered while jabbing a finger into his own chest.

"And Alec. When we had him outnumbered and surrounded back on the Ray, he already knew your name and even knew your very mindset when he saw your face for the first time. Explain to me how _that's_ possible?"

Chellick cocked a brow-ridge and turned toward Moira's terminal screen, which at the moment was flashing with different computer images as Moira herself sat up and began tapping into its keyboard again, now searching for something new through the Citadel's archives.

"Moira already showed us the answer to that one Bailey. If Axel was somehow able to bring Jango Fett and Master Yoda from the Star Wars Universe into ours, then perhaps it went the same way for him and Alec. Except instead of taking something from our universe, _they_ were the ones who got pulled into _it_," explained Chellick.

"So what you're really saying is that, to Axel, our entire universe could be nothing more than an entertaining idea cooked up by some overpaid producer at an office desk?" Bailey demanded, his voice started to rise in irritation. Sharply glancing around, Chellick leaned in closer.

"I wouldn't put it quite like that, but consider this Bailey to Jango and Yoda's perspectives their universe was undoubtedly just as real as ours is. Our universe is as real and as tangible to us as theirs was to them; but to _Axel_, a man from a completely _different_ universe, perhaps ours originated in his from something similar to Star Wars," he said firmly to the older Human.

Bailey's eye twitched, his face holding the look of a man who had just heard a scientific argument explaining why the moon was made of cheese!

"Like _what_ Professor _Ultra-Universe_?" Bailey asked with clear sardonic sarcasm in his voice, cocking his head expectantly. Chellick scowled, shutting down his omni-tool and aggressively leaning closer with his hand on the edge of Moira's desk.

"I don't know _Patton_, perhaps in Axel's universe all this is really from a book, or a movie, or even maybe a _video game_!" the Turian bit out gruffly, the heightened voices between the two men causing several of the officers and agents surrounding the area to once again look over at them in alarm.  
One particular Turian agent sitting at a desk not far from Moira's stared at the two lieutenants inquisitively for a slightly longer period then all the others, which in turn made Bailey and Chellick turn their heads toward him with irritated scowls.

"What're _you_ lookin' at!" they both snapped at the man simultaneously.

Immediately the Turian held up his hands in surrender and quickly turned back to his work.

"Guys! I got a hit!" Moira suddenly announced from her terminal, frantically typing into it's keyboard.  
Behind Chellick the massive wall screen showing Axel's fingerprint changed, the image flicking into that of a grainy beige coloured military personnel file with a square photograph of a large man in an older style uniform placed off to the left.

On the file it showed a specially organized list of individual information, ranging from eye colour, height, date of birth, and so forth.

But, while all of this was clearly marked in jet-black lettering, stamped in blazing crimson red across the picture of the man were three solid letters spelling out the acronym...

'K.I.A.'

"Bailey, Chellick, meet Second-Lieutenant Jarrod Alexi François of the Canadian Royal 22e Régiment," Moira declared with a wide grin as she leaned back in her chair with her fingers laced behind her head. Stunned by this sudden change in luck, Bailey and Chellick dropped their anger towards each other and turned to the wall screen in astonishment.

"That's the guy! How did you find him?" Chellick asked while pointing a talon up at the picture connected to the file.

Jarrod's military-ID picture was the regulation standard for the 20/21st Century Canadian Armed Forces. With the striking red and white of the Canadian flag propped up across a neutral coloured background, Jarrod sat un-smiling facing toward the camera that had taken this shot nearly two hundred years ago.  
Clean-shaven, wearing a tightly fitted black military beret on his head and a desert camouflage dress-uniform over his large muscle-bound frame, Jarrod was the spitting image of an elite soldier. All that was needed to make him look like the Jarrod that Bailey and Chellick had seen down at the Docks was some stubble on his face and a little more wear-and-tear to his clothing.

"I used the info that Axel gave us over the recording. With the Citadel's connection to the Alliance's Military Archives, I was able to reach back far enough into their older files and match up his name and background with the very one you see now," Moira explained with a nod up to Jarrod's dossier, her proud smile still lining her cheeks.

"Outstanding Moira," Bailey complimented her as he came up closer toward the screen, his eyes looking across the two hundred year old document. Sitting up straight Moira began typing into her keyboard again.

"Thanks because it wasn't easy, in computer terms this thing was a fossil, which I wouldn't have gotten at all if my query hadn't been so specific. It would seem Axel's helping us out with this investigation in more ways than one."

"What does Jarrod's file tell us?" Chellick asked over to her before turning back to the screen.

"As much as we may not want to believe it, everything Axel described appears to check out perfectly. François was an honour graduate from Officer Training out of Valcartier Army Base, had several tours-of-duty under his belt both in and outside of Afghanistan, as well as several joint-efforts with the Royal Canadian Navy in the South China Seas…" Moira began citing off, her blue/green irises zigzagging back and forth over the lines of text the file contained.

"The file closes with his death on September 25, 2010. It says that after the Army Company he belonged to liberated a village in the northern district of the Kandahar Province, Jarrod suffered a severe mental breakdown...and then…" she continued before breaking off abruptly, her head cocked and a frown on her brow.

"And then? What happened after that?" Chellick asked, prompting her to continue. Moira shook her head with a shrug before looking up from her terminal.

"Remember this thing is nearly two hundred years old, the data is so corrupted from age and misuse that parts of it are missing. From what I can make out it claims that while interrogating a captured insurgent, Jarrod suddenly lost it and drew his sidearm, killing the prisoner and then proceeding to fire blindly upon the rest of his unit."

"It doesn't mention what his psychological state was before the incident, or if he was suffering from any kind of mental illnesses that would have led up to it. It simple ends with him taking one of the local villagers as a hostage while being pursued by the rest of the unit, and then being shot in the head by…by one Lieutenant Sorenson…when he attempted to detonate a frag grenade that would have killed himself and many others within the surrounding area," she finished before looking back up at Chellick and Bailey.

"We already know what caused him to go off the hook, his brother," Bailey stated without turning away from the screen.

"Yeah, both Axel and Jarrod mention farther back on the recording about how his brother Luc François was captured and killed during an operation that went sour, the same one that their commanding officer Captain Cormier died in as well," Chellick mentioned after rubbing his chin in thought.

"Well we're in luck on that one, there's a connecting link here that lists Jarrod's next-of-kin as…" Moira added as she tapped a button that would activate the said link.

A second of processing went by before Jarrod's military file disappeared and was replaced by an almost identical one.

The bold red stamp spelling out 'K.I.A' was still emblazoned across the picture set off to the side, but the picture itself was of another man who looked very similar to but slightly different from Jarrod.

"Lieutenant Luc Avery François, the younger brother of Jarrod François but one level higher up in rank than him," Moira stated after all of the ancient file had finished downloading.

"He looks almost just like him," Bailey remarked with a cocked eyebrow.  
Luc did indeed look like a younger version of Jarrod, with the same strong jaw, the same brown eyes, the same rigidness to his face and cheeks. But aside from the many similarities between the two there _were_ noticeable differences, a few being that Luc was about an inch or so shorter then his brother and wasn't as physically large. One major difference that could be picked out at first glance was the hair; his trim cut being a soft chocolate brown as opposed to his brother's jet-black. The most striking difference between the two however wasn't in their physical appearance, but in their mannerisms toward the cameras that had taken their pictures.

While Jarrod had chosen to regard the camera with a neutral poker face, Luc had decided to do the exact opposite. From his photo he was flashing Moira, Bailey, and Chellick with a wide smile.

After taking a moment to look across Luc's file on the wall screen, Chellick turned and came back around behind Moira's desk to look at the more detailed contents contained within the rest of it on her terminal.

"Everything here correlates with the information Axel spoke of Bailey, there's no denying now that these men _are_ the ones he was referring to," Chellick told Bailey after a minute or so of looking over Luc's personal history. Nodding in agreement Bailey pulled away from the wall screen and came back around to stand beside Chellick.

"Alright so we know Axel's story is genuine, now I want to see who the man was himself all those years ago. Try bringing up _Axel's_ military record," he stated with a nod down to the screen.

"There's no link in either of the François' files, and any other other data mentioning Axel in connection to them has deteriorated beyond repair so we won't be able to access his records through those either," Moira explained as she began typing away. Suspiciously though Chellick took this moment to crack a sly Turian smile.

"But, with his fingerprint now in our possession, we should be able to match a direct link to his file and his file alone," the Turian remarked to both of them with an equally slyly cocked brow-ridge.

"Exactly," Moira added in the same manner right before jabbing a single button.

Both the wall screen and Moira's terminal changed at the same time, their surfaces shimmering for a moment as the Citadel's network tried to access the ancient files. The emerald green image of Axel's partial fingerprint returned to the right side of the screen, immediately being followed by a set of visibly aged handprints taken from various Canadian military files dating back to and before Axel's time appearing directly beside it.

These prints began cycling through the Citadel Network's list of names, each one appearing for a quick moment and then flicking to a different set just like they had done when Moira had been comparing the fingerprint to the Alliance files earlier.

For several tense seconds nobody said a word, the three of them all waiting with baited breath as the computer went through the ancient names.

Then suddenly (and after a pretty short time span when one looked at it realistically) the left side of the screen froze with the image of a single black-inked handprint displayed on an orderly sheet of detailed paper that had been photographed so as to be placed on file within the former Canadian Army's digital archives. Right away the ominous handprint started to grow in size, filling up its portion of the screen as the computer zoomed in on the finger print belonging to the forth finger from the left, the ring finger.

Once zoomed in, it took less than a second for Moira's terminal to compensate for the one hundred and seventy-ish year time gap between the two prints that were now displayed side-by-side before a small click sounded out and a glowing line of bright green text appeared across the entire screen.

'POSITIVE MATCH CONFIRMED' was what the flashing message spelt out, almost triumphantly as the two prints slid inward together until they had morphed into one, showing that they both matched up perfectly.

"Boys, get ready to buy me a beer," Moira declared before tapping the execute button on her keyboard.

The matching prints dimmed down as a familiar beige military file opened up over them, scrolling from the top of the screen downward until it had completely unfurled before its awaiting audience.

"I give you Axel Kaae Sorenson himself!" Moira read off victoriously before folding her arms and leaning back with her boots propped up on her desk crossed at the ankles.

Axel's file looked very similar to Jarrod and Luc's, with the one major exception of his not having a 'K.I.A' stamped across his ID. In his picture he was dressed in the exact same attire as Jarrod and Luc had been, with a well-prepped desert uniform and a tight black beret overtop of his trim cut blonde hair. Having an attitude more like Luc, Axel was framed sitting on a stool with his right hand casually pressed against the top of his thigh, looking up at the three C-Sec officers with one of the friendliest grins they had ever seen.

"THAT'S OUR SCUMBAG!" Chellick roared out across the office with his fists raised into the air, his face overcome with joy.

"Would you three knock it off!" a nameless agent shouted angrily from one side of the room as most of its inhabitants turned towards Moira's desk in annoyance…again.

"Sorry…" was all Chellick could manage with a suddenly embarrassed look while everyone returned to their work, more then a few of them casting the Turian cold glares as they did.  
"_'Speed'_ reference!" Moira added in non-the-less, trying to ease the pressure off Chellick as she flashed a giddy smile to pacify anyone still glaring at them and held up a hand to receive a High-Five. Chellick laughed quietly in thanks as the palm of his three fingered hand briefly clapped with that of hers.  
(So I guess that makes it a High…Three?)

"I gotta admit, he actually looks pretty handsome when he isn't being chased and shot at by an army of cops," Moira remarked with an impressed cock of her eyebrow after she had looked over Axel's ID a few times.  
"Moira…" Bailey stated down to her flatly while he gazed at the wall screen. Moira laughed and sat up straight in her chair.

"Oh don't worry Bailey, intergalactic terrorists aren't exactly my type," she joked back up to him with another smile.

"Moira!" Bailey repeated more firmly while casting a deliberate look down at her, pointing to her terminal with all of Axel's information. Kealoha's smile awkwardly disappeared at that.

"Right…" she said quietly before turning around and clearing her throat.

"This file is almost more corrupted than Jarrod's was, so don't expect any miracles," Kealoha stated over her shoulder before reading aloud the information before her.

"Axel Sorenson, born August 2nd, 1985 A.D., in Carleton Place Ontario to Steen Sorenson and Michelle Morris-Sorenson. His mother unfortunately died due to complications in childbirth and as a result his father raised him alone from then on. Shortly after his birth he and his father moved northward to the city of Thunder Bay where Axel spent the entirety of his childhood, it was here that he met and befriended the François brothers early on. When he turned twenty he and the François' moved out on their own and journeyed together to the brothers' ancestral residence in Gatineau Quebec, where they all enlisted with the Armed Forces and got accepted into Officer Training. From then on it describes an almost meteoric rise through the ranks, with the three of them acting as a modern Three Musketeers of sorts."

Moira continued describing what partial information the dated file had on the three's experience through Basic Training and onward, giving a detailed picture of the social structure the trio seemed to have between each other. From the file's point of view, Axel was the leader and the most cunning out of the three, Luc was usually the laid back easy going voice of reason, while Jarrod had been the lovable albeit sometimes brash and hotheaded hulking muscle of the group (which was in stark contrast to the murderous and insane man the C-Sec trio had been researching up to this point).

If put alongside Alexandre Dumas' iconic characters, Axel would have been Athos, while Luc would have been loosely equated with Aramis, and Jarrod would have been the strong-as-an-ox figure that was Porthos.

As she continued, the file started to get more and more distorted but was clear enough to show some more notable events that took place during Axel's time with the military.

After nearly three years into the job the three were noted to have befriended another man who readily became the forth member of their little group, a sort of D'Artagnan to their Musketeers, an up-and-coming Sniper Officer named Geordi Hiamoto. Shortly after that all four of them graduated to the ranks of Lieutenants before being assigned and accepted into the Company of one Captain Fredrick Cormier, to which the original three served as a large portion of the captain's administrative staff.

"The data gets more corrupted after that but from what is still clear it mentions that after being assigned to Cormier's command, Axel's father Steen became terminally ill with some kind of fungal virus he picked up while camping in the northern woods around Thunder Bay, he eventually dies six months later," Moira explained with a small shake of her head.

"That must have been hard on him," Chellick stated softly, as if he were empathizing with Axel. Bailey squinted his eyes while looking over the terminal screen, barely able to read the eroded text.

"What else does it say?" he asked down to their tech specialist.

"Everything else talking about what they did on base or their work throughout Canada has faded away, so if Steen's death did somehow affect him I can't tell. However there is one thing that I can still make out that's a bit interesting…" Moira stated before squinting her own eyes and leaning closer to the holographic screen.

"What is it?" Chellick asked, both he and Bailey remaining quiet and listening intently so as to not miss anything.

"There was once a complaint brought to Cormier about an issue regarding Axel. Apparently Mister Sorenson may have had a problem with fraternization in the workplace," Kealoha cited with a very amused thin smile as she looked back at Chellick and Bailey.

Both officers turned to one another with stunned expressions after hearing this intriguing nugget of information.

"He was sleeping with soldiers under his command?" Chellick inquired with a cocked brow-ridge and a rather unsettled look on his face. Immediately however Moira shook her head and turned back to the screen.

"It doesn't say anything about him sleeping with anyone, it just says that Axel was seen on a few occasions becoming rather close with one officer in particular who belonged to a different unit. The source claimed that Lieutenant Sorenson and this officer were rarely seen apart when the two groups were brought together, and that as time went on they both began to show very slight signs of PDA whenever they were around each other on duty, both while on base and even once while on a deployment. They tried to keep these instances under wraps and out of sight from the rest of their respective Companies as much as possible, but every now and then they would un-deniably show through," Moira read out with a wide grin that only grew wider and wider the more she spoke, now feeling like she was reading a light romance story. Chellick was grinning also, and even Bailey had a slight smile to his weathered face.

"Axel, you dog! Does it say who this mystery woman...or, man, was?" asked Chellick, his grin dropping as he added in the other sex option since he didn't truly know if Axel was gay or not.

Bailey cocked his head and regarded Chellick with a bewildered frown.

"Hey, we don't know what his preferences are. Maybe…you know, maybe it was a man!" Chellick defended with an awkward shrug, quickly looking to Moira for help in the argument.

"Uh huh…" Bailey stated in an over the top unconvinced tone before turning back, deliberately but jokingly give the Turian a hard time.

Moira was chuckling softly at Chellick's distress.  
"Calm down Chellick, it mentions here that the officer in question was definitely a woman. However though, other then a brief note on their gender it doesn't give us anything else, the files are just too damaged. There's no name, no description, not even a rank, its as if Axel's lady friend almost never existed," she explained, somewhat disappointed at not being able to find out the complete identity of Axel's mystery lover. Bailey rubbed his chin for a few moments before rumbling out a 'hum'.

"Alright so we now know about his background, skip ahead to the incident involving Jarrod and the village. After he allegedly gunned down François, what did Lieutenant Sorenson do?"

Typing in to her keyboard, Moira flipped through several more pages of faded or broken text until she came to the last set of reports added before Axel's file was closed for good.

"After Jarrod was killed Axel's Company was on the verge of being taken off active service. It had already lost over a dozen men within a three-week period; but _now_ it had no commanding officer to lead it and most of its lieutenants that had been eligible for the position had been killed off…" Moira began again, but suddenly Chellick reached out a hand and gently grabbed her by the shoulder, making her stop in mid-sentence and look back at him.

"Hold on. You both said _Lieutenant_ Sorenson right?" Chellick asked both of them. Moira and Bailey nodded with slight frowns.

"Yeah…you heard it too Chellick, he was named as such in the earlier files we just read," Bailey stated with a nod down to the terminal, now confused by Chellick's behaviour. Chellick nodded with a strange puzzled look to his eyes.

"Yes, in the _earlier_ files. But if Axel's Company was in danger of being taken out of service because it had no commanding officer, why then is his file clearly labeled as…" Chellick began as he turned toward the massive wall-screen and crossed out from behind Moira's desk toward it.

"'_Captain'_ Axel Kaae Sorenson," he finished as he came up under the displayed file and outstretched his arm over his head, using his natural Turian height to reach far up to the top of the screen and tap the section that held the terrorist's name and rank with the tip of his index talon.

Bailey blinked after reading the rank placed next to Axel's printed name, looking between Moira's terminal and the wall screen, seeing that the flaw Chellick had just noticed was indeed written within the file.

"He's right. When then did Axel make captain?" Bailey asked down to Moira, now very interested to hear this little story. Clicking a button, the page shifted downward to the last group of paragraphs before the file ended abruptly.

"Actually it explains some of that right here. After the Company was moved back to Kandahar's capital city and put on standby, Axel was immediately extracted from Afghanistan and returned to Canada to give his account of what happened in person. He was brought before a Military Board of Inquiry in a classified section of the Parliament Building in Ottawa…"

"That doesn't sound like a great way to give a promotion," Chellick commented with a wince. But right away Moira held up a hand to interrupt him.

"NO. This is where it gets _really_ interesting. After giving his report and retelling the events that happened in the village, the Board actually commends Axel for his heroism and comes to the decision to promote him to the full rank of Captain, since apparently he was the only officer left with the skill and knowhow to fill the role. They placed him in charge of Cormier's Company and asked him to return to Afghanistan as soon as possible to take command and continue offensive operations."

"So how then did he…" Bailey began saying, but Moira held up her hand again to silence _him_ this time.

"Wait! It doesn't end there. According to eyewitness accounts when they gave him this promotion, it seems to say something about Axel actually trying to _refuse _it. Unfortunately because he was their only candidate within the Company and was already an accommodated officer with several citations for bravery, the Board actually orders him to accept and forces the promotion onto him," she added. Chellick raised his brow-ridges in surprise at that detail.

"They can do that?" he asked, looking somewhat nervously between the other two.

"In response to their decision it seems that Axel accepted the promotion, but in a noticeable state of anger. It then goes on to say that in return for this he asks to be granted an extended leave-of-absence without pay for unknown reasons. The Board denies his request and orders him back to Afghanistan. But before he has a chance to leave the country he gets examined at the last minute by a military physician. In their report the physician apparently discovered that Axel had undergone a startling, even damaging, change to his psychological state of mind. It was such that the physician immediately recommends Axel be given a three month leave-of-absence and be put under periodic medical observation."

Bailey and Chellick reared back in shock slightly, startled by this eerie change in Axel's persona.

"Okay that's a bit scary. What were the changes the physician recorded?" asked Chellick. Tapping another button, Moira brought up a small screen off to the side of Axel's file that she quickly scrolled through.

"It doesn't say exactly, parts of the medical report are also corroded. From what I can reconstruct it says physically he was fine, and while undergoing the questioning period of the exam Axel displayed a great deal of calm control, personable exchanges, and even witty humour. But eventually when asked about Jarrod, the events in the village, or anything related to those subjects, it gets rather vague. I can't tell if it says he either suddenly clammed up or became visibly irritated, along with a bunch of other odd responses. And this was just his _first_ interview; later during the course of his leave and the subsequent examinations that came with it, the reports from other physicians who checked up on him mention that when asked those same kinds of questions Axel's condition had deteriorated beyond his original diagnosis. He seems to be cited as having developed aggressive mood swings that were on the verge of becoming violent. He even begins confessing to the interviewers at having thoughts of depression bordering on the suicidal."

Chellick shook his head slowly, almost sadly even, after hearing the tragic transformation in Axel's promising character.

"No doubt Luc and Jarrod's deaths wounded him very deeply, its no wonder he began to go off the deep end."

"Mhmm, and then the file just ends with his disappearance a week after the last check up," Moira concurred with a nod.

"His disappearance? You mean he suddenly vanished before he left Canada?" Bailey asked. Moira nodded again, typing into the keyboard and scrolling down to the final paragraph in the dossier, one that was marked at the end with a black stamp stating 'FILE CLOSED'.

"The file ends with a short description of his sudden disappearance at the end of the three months. According to what's written here Axel was scheduled to report to the Army detachment stationed in Thunder Bay and then take a military flight back to Kandahar to accept command of the Company. But it says that he never showed up. Many people tried contacting him afterward but he didn't respond, eventually leading to the Ontario Provincial Police being sent to his family home to see if he was okay. Instead they found his house empty, with no trace of him or his four-wheeler that he would usually use to travel locally. Immediately he became the subject of a nation wide search-and-rescue that lasted several months, in which the authorities were able to find the crashed wreckage of his vehicle deep in the surrounding forest but with no signs of a body or any evidence that would explain where he'd gone. After every attempt to find him was met with failure, he was finally declared as Missing Abroad. The police investigation was closed as unsolved, while his military file here labels his Date of Death as 'Unknown'."

Chellick scoffed in annoyance with a quick shake of his head.

"That's it? He just up and goes off the grid the day he's to re-enter active service? That's got to be the most annoying cliffhanger I've ever heard! It doesn't say at all if he was discovered years later? Or what happened to the Company after his disappearance?" Moira shook her head and shrugged her shoulders with an amused chuckle.

"This is all I've got Chellick, he vanished and they never found him again. End of story."  
Chellick scowled in disappointment as he folded his arms, uttering out a gruff 'Humph'.

"But hey look at it this way, doesn't this support your theory that he's…" Kealoha began adding supportively, abruptly lowering her voice and taking a look over her shoulder before leaning toward the Turian.  
"That he's from another universe? If he suddenly vanishes from the history books in one reality, doesn't that mean the same thing'll happen in the other realities as well? The day he's suppose to have disappeared could very well be the day he suddenly fell into…" Moira continued quietly before looking all around the office and raising a hand slightly to indicate their surroundings.

"_Our_ universe. That would explain the suddenness behind his disappearance and why no trace of him was ever found afterward."

"Pulling a Jimmy Hoffa by falling down the Rabbit Hole and never coming back out again eh?" Chellick posed down to her with a small grin before giving a sigh and shaking his head thoughtfully.

"We're putting together wild conclusions that are centered around magic and pseudoscience. Everything we've discovered here fits with what we believe happened today, and yet we still don't have any concrete evidence to back it up or any reasonable explanations that would have the remotest chance of standing up in a court." Glancing over at Bailey and then back at Moira, Chellick spread his hands out to indicate all three of them.

"Nobody'll ever believe us if we come forward with this."

Moira gave a thin conceding smile to that, knowing full well it was true before glancing over at the other lieutenant standing beside her. Bailey hadn't spoken a word since hearing the mention of Axel's disappearance, and was right now regarding the wall screen with deep piercing eyes, once again rubbing his chin deeply in thought.

"What do you think Bailey? You haven't added your two cents to this yet?" she asked up to him with a curious cock of her head. Moira's voice seemed to snap Bailey out of his thoughts, making him blink in surprise.

"Don't get me started on that whole Alternate Universe thing again, God knows my head's spinning enough as it is. But there _is_ something that's been nagging me just now," Bailey answered.

"Oh? Like what?" asked Moira as she and Chellick turned their full attention to him.

"Axel was made captain so as to lead the Company in the absence of Cormier. But he was only put in command _after_ Jarrod was killed, right?" Bailey asked the other two, his eyes still focused on Axel's file. Both Chellick and Moira nodded between each other.

"Right. Luc, Axel, and Jarrod made up most of the officers that would have been placed in command in the event of Cormier being put down in action. Since Luc and Jarrod were both dead, Axel was the only one left to take the job," Moira answered.

"That's what's throwing me off. Axel was promoted _after_ Jarrod was killed; both of them were still cited as being _Lieutenants_ at that point, which means neither of them took command of the Company after Luc and Cormier died. So in the time between Captain Cormier's death and the death of Lieutenant François…" Bailey began, gesturing back and forth with one hand to indicate the events in chronological order.

"_Who_ was leading the Company?"

A long silence descended between the three of them.

Bailey looked between his two stunned colleagues, letting his question sink in. Chellick blinked, looking back over to Moira for clarification since he couldn't find an answer. Moira was frowning to herself in confusion, she too clearly just as puzzled by this new piece to the mystery of Axel's past.

"Uhh…wait! It actually mentions that a little further back!" she began hesitantly before suddenly snapping her fingers as the answer came to her, immediately spinning her swivel chair around and manipulating her terminal to flip back through the sections of Axel's file. Bailey and Chellick maneuvered themselves around the desk until they were standing at her backside again, both of them leaning over her shoulders toward the terminal screen, inching closer until their heads were lined up on either side of hers. After several more keystrokes, Moira abruptly stopped on one page not too far away from the file's end.

"This is it! This was the report filed shortly after Cormier was killed."

The words on the page were still just as broken or faded as the others had been up to this point, which made Chellick glance over at her.

"You can still read this right? Cause I'm getting nothing from it," he stated to the screen with a shake of his head.  
Moira looked back at him slyly out of the corner of her eye before giving a dramatic sigh of disappointment.

"Men. Always never willing to go the extra mile to get the job done," she said in an equally disappointed voice with a small shake of her own head, her words causing a surprised expression to turn her way from both Chellick and Bailey.

"It says that after Cormier was confirmed killed by the Company's doctor, the Commander of Field Operations for the entire province didn't want the captain's original orders to be put on hold. To keep the function of the Company running as smoothly as possible, he ordered it to be immediately placed under the command of the next highest ranking officer." Bailey cocked an eyebrow after Moira finished reading the almost unintelligible text.

"So Axel wasn't the highest officer under Cormier. Who then did the Commander put in charge after the captain's death?"

"An officer by the name of Lieutenant-Commander Sydow was Cormier's official number 2; after his death this Sydow guy was given a field promotion to acting-captain of the Company, and from then on it was business as usual," Moira explained with a flick of her hand that scrolled the page down a few inches.

Chellick cocked his own brow-ridge.

"Just Lieutenant-Commander? No Mr. or Mrs. with that Sydow?" he commented with an inquisitive look. Moira shrugged.

"That's all they ever refer to him as, just Captain Sydow or Sydow. They mention him a handful of times but never give a first name or imply a gender, so we really have no idea if this person was even a man in the first place. Any other paragraphs that talk about him in detail have deteriorated beyond even _my_ skill to read," she answered while scrolling farther down the page to the rest of the paragraphs that made mention of this anonymous 'Sydow' character.

Chellick scoffed with an obvious roll of his eyes.  
"_Women_, always…" he began in a very nasal imitation of Moira's voice, but he was suddenly interrupted by her jabbing him in the ribs.

"Don't start with me Bird Boy cause' it'll be a bloodbath!" she warned, pointing up at him with a wide grin and a barely contained laugh.

"Kids, can we get back to the matter at hand. So Sydow was given command of the Company up until Jarrod's death, what happened to him after that that gave Axel the opportunity to take his job? Did he get reassigned or was he killed in action," Bailey interrupted their little batch of playful banter.

"It doesn't say any of that actually, this is where the story gets kind of confusing. After Jarrod's death Captain Sydow is said to have travelled back to the provincial capital with the rest of the Company, but then after that he's listed as having accompanied Axel on the same flight back to Canada where Sorensen was to give his eyewitness report. It doesn't explain why though, whether he was journeying there to speak in Axel's defense or to attend to some other matter," answered Moira, snapping back into her professional persona.

"Its more then likely he was ordered back to give his own account of what happened so the Board could see if his and Axel's stories matched up," Chellick remarked.

"But then why send Axel at all? If Sydow was still the highest-ranking officer in charge, shouldn't _he_ have been the one to get selected in the first place since he would have been responsible for the well-being of the men and women under his command?" Bailey posed over to him.

"Like I said it doesn't say why he went back, it just ends on a rather abrupt note. Once their plane landed in Ottawa, Sydow and Sorenson went their separate ways. As I mentioned earlier Axel headed to Parliament Hill to give his report, while Sydow just disappears off the map entirely," Moira added in between them.

Chellick's eyes bulged and his jaw dropped at hearing this.

"You can't be serious!" he stated in shock, clearly not expecting to be left on yet another cliffhanger.

"I'm not making this up Chellick! There just isn't enough data left to tell us the whole story; from what I can read here it says that Sydow lands in Ottawa, a while later he leaves the city with a small detachment of soldiers headed for some unnamed rural region of the Ontario countryside, and then he's never mentioned in the file again! Either he decided to retire from the military or just went plain AWOL we'll never know, the file is either too corrupted or the information simply isn't there!" Moira protested while tapping a finger on her terminal-screen, indicating the last corrupted paragraph mentioning Sydow.

"Perhaps he wasn't ready for the responsibilities of being a captain, and saw a chance to get out when he returned to his homeland. Either way something had to have happened to him for that Board of Inquiry to agree to pass the mantle of command on to Axel," Bailey commented to them both.

Chellick nodded slowly, looking at the partial pages of Axel's file for a moment before turning back to him and Moira.

"Why don't we find out about the man…or woman…themself? See what kind of person they were?" he posed to both of them.

"I was gonna say the same thing. Think you can bring up Captain Sydow's file, so we can at least get a picture of what _their_ background was like?" Bailey nodded to Chellick before posing the Turian's proposal to Moira. Regarding them both with a smug smile Moira laced her hands together and stretched her arms out ahead of her, bending her hands backwards until each of the joints in her fingers gave a loud pop.

"Boys, I hope you're ready to buy me another beer," she stated before typing away once again into her keyboard.

* * *

At this very moment kilometers away from C-Sec Academy, two blue-armoured Turian agents walked down a dark dingy corridor in the deep underbelly of the Market District, one that was partially lit up in certain sections by low powered red security lights. Both of them were carrying activated standard-issue assault rifles in their hands which were loosely shining short cones of light across their path from glowing flashlights fixed to their ends.

"What the hell are we doin' down here Criax?" the Turian on the left complained to his partner on the right, scanning his light across the grimy dust covered walls and pitch-black ceiling that reached far up overtop of them.  
Many exposed lines of thick hanging electrical cable and large air-ducts ran down the length of the corridor's ceiling, most of them crisscrossing wildly around each other within the dark shadows cast by the eerie red lights spaced far out along the walls.

"We're down here Torrvk because there's a threat still lurking around somewhere in this District, and we need to find it before it hurts somebody," the Turian known as Criax responded back to his partner.

"Yeah, a threat that even Sgt. Vakarian and an army of C-Sec's finest were barely able to contain. I saw some of the damage those things did back in the Market Corridor, and I'm telling you right now that sending down a handful of rookie cops barely a year on the beat to try and capture it is _stupid_! The Executor might as well be throwing our lives away, you know since all the better-trained and _better-equipped_ agents better suited for this job just _had_ to be rotated to the Embassies to ensure those high-and-mighty politicians get round the clock protection after that terrorist scare back at the Tower!" the agent known as Torrvk ranted loudly as he raised his rifle with one hand, using the other to make sharp declarative hand gestures.

"This is part of the job…" Criax said simply with a small shrug, all the while glancing at the dark shadowy areas they walked past, shining his rifle light into any large side passages or open machine rooms that branched off from the main corridor.

"Going down abandoned maintenance tunnels, undermanned and inexperienced, after a homicidal alien organism that has _acid_ for blood?! What's next, we send new recruits one at a time into the Keeper Tunnels after mutant Krogan freaks armed with only second-hand pistols?! I'm tellin' you man they don't care about us, to the brass we're just cannon fodder. I didn't sign up to be treated like bait on a hook. We should be doin' something about it, you know Unionizin' or somethin'!" Torrvk continued ranting, repeatedly stabbing his talon down toward the dirty metal floor to better emphasize his point.

Criax frowned without turning to look at his partner, having noticed that Torrvk's voice was beginning to get thicker with that weird accent he had developed several months ago when he had taken his C-Sec vacation days to travel around the colony worlds in Human Alliance space. After he'd returned to work, one of the Human agents in the Academy had told Criax that Torrvk now sounded a lot like a 1950's New Yorker, whatever that meant.

"You know if you talk loud enough you might be able to draw that thing out of hiding and bring it straight to us, then we could either capture it or die a horrible and gruesome death. But either way our job would be finished and we wouldn't need to go walking down the deep dark tunnels anymore, and then you wouldn't have anything to complain about! So good job partner, keep up the good work!" Criax explained deliberately casual before throwing Torrvk a quick thumbs up and continuing on down the long corridor, leaving the other rookie to freeze in place and nervously sweep his flashlight around himself, pointing it at all of the dark places a cunning Xenomorph could lie in wait to spring an ambush.

Suddenly a distant metallic clang echoed up to them from the end of the corridor the two had just come from, making Torrvk spin around with a yell and bring the butt of his rifle up to his shoulder, ready to blast away anything that tried to creep up on him!

But nothing did, and the only thing he was treated to in the deafening silence was the sound of Criax's full-blown laughter coming from behind him.

"Fuck you! That's not funny Criax!" Torrvk began trying to say over his partner's laughing, never taking his eyes away from the corridor's deserted far end as he quickly jogged semi-backwards in order to catch up.

"Well I thought it was _hilarious_," Criax said over his shoulder with one last chuckle as the other Turian came stumbling back up to his side. This only got a scowl from Torrvk as he hefted his weapon. Criax shook his head and sighed sympathetically.

"You're too jumpy man, you gotta cool down and have a calmer mind. Remember what Lieutenant Bailey always says, 'A calm mind can save your life in _any_ situation, all you gotta do is use it right'," he said, making his voice sound older and more gravely in a bad imitation of Bailey's. This succeeded in getting Torrvk to smirk involuntarily after finding the little display funny.

"I guess…" he muttered in agreement. Criax smiled and he gave his partner a clap on the shoulder.

"That's the spirit! Keep that up and we'll do fine down here."

Both of them continued down the nightmarish corridor for a minute or so until Criax brought them to a stop and deactivated his assault rifle, folding it into its compact form and attaching it to the magnetic clips on his armoured back. Lifting his left arm, he activated his omni-tool and typed a command code into its communication systems.

"Search Leader to Search Teams, its time for our routine checkup guys, sound off your findings one at a time," Criax ordered into the tool's microphone, using his other hand to press against his hidden earpiece with his index talon.

"You wanna do that here? Out in the open like this?" Torrvk asked incredulously while panning the barrel of his rifle all around them, their immediate area being bathed in the bright orange glow of the omni-tool, which succeeded in making the surrounding corridor and beyond disappear into an inky pitch-black.

"You got a better place to do it? Just relax, it'll only take a second," Criax reassured him as the reports from the other C-Sec teams started coming in.

"_This is Search Team 2, we've still found no traces of the creature,"_ came a Turian voice through the omni-tool. Soon this was followed by another.

"_Search Team 3 reports no contacts."_ And another.

"_Team 4, no sightings yet." _

On and on this continued for a few seconds, the list of teams going from 2 up to 5, each of them reporting no findings.

Criax let out a tired sigh and gave a nod of defeat.

"Alright keep at it then, watch your backs and call me the moment any of you find something." With that he shut down the tool and drew his assault rifle, waiting for a moment as his and Torrvk's eyes adjusted to the darkness again before they both continued on their journey down the corridor.  
For a few more minutes they moved in silence, passing the periodic red lights and quickly looking over each room or passageway they went by.

"So whatta we gonna do when we find this thing?" Torrvk whispered out of the corner of his mouth while still glancing around at the nearby walls. The pair walked past a large archway built into the wall on their left side before Criax answered.

"We're going to keep out of sight and hold a position within shooting distance, then signal the others to rally…" he began explaining step by step, projecting a calm image of leadership even though he barely had any more experience in this sort of thing than Torrvk.

But before he could continue with their plan of attack, he suddenly felt his partner's hand sharply grab him by the shoulder, making him jerk to an abrupt stop.

"Shit!" Torrvk blurted out, his eyes wide with fright and his head rigidly turned over to their left. Criax frowned in alarm, allowing Torrvk to use the vice grip he had his shoulder in to pull him back a few steps.

"What? What's wrong…" Criax began asking with concern, looking at Torrvk before snapping his head toward the direction the other was looking in, searching for whatever had struck the other Turian frozen with fear.

Right away he found what he was looking for.

Beyond the large archway they had been passing was an even larger octagonal area that acted as a junction for several dark passageways, a sort of convoluted Fork in the Road except connecting to more than just two diverting paths. The red security lights that usually lit the area were smashed to pieces or hanging off the walls from frayed electrical cables, making them cast what was left of their luminescence with very low glows or flash on and off sporadically. The walls themselves were covered in some kind of thick slimy substance, much of it having hardened and turned a jet-black colour. This hardened slime material covered nearly half of the junction on its right side and succeeded in adding a frightening new architecture to the junction's surroundings.

It was a truly alien contrast, with the unchanged walls still being a flat uniform metal lit up in red, while the ones covered by the black resin like material had pronounced erratic swirling patterns and curves violently reaching out over the areas it had taken control of. Giant deformed circles and ovals were placed intermittently within these swirls' arcs, with a fresh layer of slime covering their surfaces and shining off the nearby red of the security lights.  
This new architecture looked like a hideous cross between the inside of an ant-hill and that of a wasp nest.  
Debris from destroyed lights, cameras, and control conduits were littered all over the junction's floor, along with very large randomly discarded containers that had been dragged to this location from down several of the passageways the junction connected to.

From the ones that had either been thrown onto their sides and had their lids wrenched off, or were simply ripped apart completely, Criax could see the partial remains of preserved food packages and meat containers that had been savagely rummaged through. The thing that had done this had obviously been stocking up fiercely on whatever food it could find in the maintenance tunnels' storerooms.

"Right there!" Torrvk hissed to Criax under his breath, pointing his talon toward a specific part of the alien structure. At first he didn't see what Torrvk was indicating, unable to distinguish anything within the odd shapes and crisscrossing strings of slime that made up the alien wall.

But after squinting his eyes, he saw something move.

"Oh…" Criax stated suddenly, his eyes now widening as he understood what he was looking at.

In the deep red of the junction's lighting, the Xenomorph had remained perfectly camouflaged within the blackness of it's redesigned walls. But after seeing it's near emaciated chest move several times due to its lungs inhaling and then exhaling, Criax had easily been able to trace the outline for the rest of its body and discern it from the deformed nooks that surrounded it.

"That's it! That's the thing…" Torrvk began saying loudly, his archaic Brooklyner sounding voice becoming ragged as his fear caused his adrenaline to spike.

"Shut up and get down!" Criax hissed at him as he clamped a hand over his partner's mouth and threw them both into a dive behind one of the mangled storage containers.  
For a tense moment both of them held their breath and remained prone on their stomachs, waiting to see if the Xenomorph had taken notice of them.  
But oddly enough nothing happened, the constant sound of the creature's shallow animalistic breathing remained the same, showing no signs of it having heard or felt their intrusion into its lair.

"Well…so far so good," Criax muttered with a quick smile after letting out a quiet sigh.

"Easy for you to say! Hurry up and call the others so we can bag that thing before it sees and _eats_ us!" Torrvk retorted sharply, gripping his rifle with one hand while quickly shutting off its flashlight with his other.

"They didn't _eat_ anybody back in the Corridor, and they don't have eyes, at least from what the camera recordings showed," Criax countered, using the palm of his hand to cover the top of his own flashlight rather then shut it off.

"Look around us, this thing's been tearin' through meat and protein packs like it hasn't eaten in years! And how do you know they don't have eyes? The shots we got from the Corridor's security cams would make Earth's ancient footage of Bigfoot look _High Definition_," Torrvk added, throwing out a sweeping gesture to indicate all of the decimated food packages and torn shreds of preserved meat cutlets strewn around the container they were hiding behind.

In response to this however Criax split a daring Turian grin and pulled his rifle up to his shoulder.

"Why don't we find out for sure?" he stated before getting into a low crouch on his haunches.

"What…" Torrvk tried saying in astonishment, but Criax was already adjusting a setting into the side of his gun.

"Weapons at the ready," he ordered, right before jumping up to a stand, swinging the rifle to his shoulder and pointing the beam of his still active flashlight straight at the Xenomorph's face!

Torrvk gave a yelp as he awkwardly lunged up beside him, also training his rifle on the Alien, albeit with somewhat shaky hands.

The Xeno seemed to be staring directly at them, its head bowed slightly and its sharp gleaming teeth loosely bared. Most of the creature was covered in some kind of black leathery webbing similar to what made up the strange walls surrounding it. The bottom half of its torso, legs, tail, and the back of its long curved head were completely enveloped in this webbing, keeping it firmly attached to the wall a few meters above the Turians. Its arms were closely crossed over its chest in a manner reminiscent of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, with both of its clawed hands clenched tightly into fists.

As the beam from Criax's flashlight reflected off the Xenomorph's slime covered body he began noticing the many injuries it'd sustained to its chest and limbs during the Corridor Battle before it had managed to escape.

One injury that stood out in particular were two nasty gashes on the right side of the creature's head that went down its entire length.

Another tense moment passed where the two agents held their ground with their talons squeezed firmly against their triggers.  
But amazingly the creature _still_ didn't do anything!

It appeared to be looking at them dead in the eye, and yet it made no move to acknowledge their presence, gave no enraged hiss in response to the blinding light being shined on it. It didn't even flinch after hearing Torrvk's startled yelp. It was as if the Alien were completely ignoring them.

After noticing this strange reaction for himself Criax's arms slackened and he lowered his weapon slightly.

"Now this is damn peculiar," he remarked with a suspicious frown.

"Have you completely lost it?! That thing could'a jumped over here and torn us to shreds!" Torrvk demanded angrily, lowering his own weapon while they both went back down on one knee behind the storage container, keeping their eyes fixed on the oddly unresponsive Xenomorph. Criax shook his head in turn, still holding his frown of suspicion as he continued to stare up at the creature hanging before them.

"I don't think it could have done anything. It looks like it's put itself into some kind of…hibernation."

"Oh, so now you're an expert? If it's hibernatin' it's probably trying to heal itself…or its changin' into somethin'," Torrvk shot back.

That last comment caught Criax off guard, making him glance at his partner out of the corner of his eye.

'_Changing into something? Where did that come from?' _he thought to himself.

"Either way we've found it and have secured a clear line of sight. Lets get the others here and corroborate on a strategy for capturing it," Criax stated before putting his rifle on the ground and activating his omni-tool again. The sudden bright orange glow from the holographic device lit up most of the junction, revealing the seemingly hibernating Xenomorph completely. After taking a second to make sure that this disturbance also wouldn't set the creature off, Criax typed the command code into his communication system and reopened the channel between him and the other search teams.

What he didn't realize however was that while he was doing this Torrvk had also placed his rifle down, having stood up to his full height and was now moving away from the toppled storage container until he was standing several feet behind Criax.

"…Lock in on my omni-tool and report to our location," Criax finished instructing before shutting down the tool after having briefly explained the situation to the other squads.

Torrvk placed a hand behind his back, fumbling with something hidden underneath his utility belt.

"Communications have been working smoothly between us and the other teams. I assume that means we can also contact C-Sec Academy from down here?" Torrvk asked, looking up at the Xenomorph before glancing down at Criax's backside with a cocked brow-ridge.

Criax himself now held a severe frown. Torrvk's voice had changed. The New Yorker accent was gone, replaced by one that was proud, articulate, and _cold_, almost to the point of being arrogant sounding.

"Uh…no. We're too far below the Presidium for a clear transmission to reach the Academy from here," Criax answered hesitantly, warning bells going off in his head as he kept his back to his partner while slowly dropping his hand to the compact Kessler pistol attached to the side of his waist.

There was a pause, a deathly quiet pause, before Torrvk answered with a single menacing word.

"_Good." _

Criax spun around, his hand now gripping and subconsciously drawing the compact pistol.

"Good? Torrvk what do you mean g…" he began demanding before his voice caught in his throat and his face fell as he saw what was truly behind him.

Torrvk had already drawn and activated a black Carniflex Hand-Cannon that he had somehow managed to hide from Criax during their entire trip down here, one to which he was attaching a long black silencer that he had pulled out from the back of his belt!

Criax yelled as he swung up his arm holding the Kessler, trying desperately to activate it and get a shot off. But it was hopeless; Torrvk had already screwed the silencer into place on his own pistol. All it took was a calm repositioning of his wrist and a gentle squeeze of the trigger.

Craix gave a brief cry as the thermal round sliced easily through the chest-plate of his armour and imbedded itself within the center of his heart.

As the slain Turian's weapon clattered to the floor and his body fell lazily to the side, Torrvk adjusted his arm slightly and fired two more silenced rounds into his former partner's chest, just to be sure that his marksmanship had been as dead on as he had been trained for.

Satisfied after seeing Criax only jerk in response to the additional rounds, Torrvk deactivated his weapon and casually slid it under his belt. Then, reaching in to a small pouch hanging on the side of that said belt, he pulled out a strange purple sphere barely half the size of his palm. Walking back over to the storage container that Criax's lifeless body slumped against, Torrvk used his thumb to press a small hidden button located at the top of the sphere before placing it down on the surface of the container.

Immediately the sphere gave out a low pitched humming signal, one that jammed all communications and scrambled any navigational equipment within a half-mile radius.

Torrvk winced slightly as his C-Sec earpiece began giving out a blaring white noise, the jamming device affecting his equipment also. Pulling it out, the Turian traitor crushed the tiny microphone within his palm and cast the pieces aside. Reaching into the same pouch that he had retrieved the sphere from, he pulled out another earpiece that was made from the same black material as his silenced Carniflex. Slipping this into his ear section, Torrvk took one last look up at the hibernating Xenomorph.

"You will make an excellent addition to his army…Your Majesty," he stated softly with a small bow to the creature before activating the earpiece.  
Almost as if it had heard him in its unconscious state, the Xenomorph's black lips retracted upward slightly, baring its teeth just a fraction more before letting out a small guttural growl.

After activating his earpiece and connecting himself on a secure channel with the rest of his cohorts, Torrvk looked ahead and spoke.

"It is done, you may move in now." In return, a deep commanding voice answered him.

"_Indeed." _

* * *

"Having trouble?" Chellick asked down to Moira with an inquisitive look. It had been nearly ten minutes since she had delved back into the Alliance's Archives in search of the file belonging to Captain Sydow, and yet it was proving to be the most elusive out of the bunch that they had been going through up to this point.

Moira didn't look at him; she merely tightened her face harder in concentration as she continued to search through the streaming databases.

"I know where the file is, it just doesn't want to come out of the Archives. It looks like its buried under a mountain of errors and computer blocks," Moira stated with suspicion, her fingers moving fluidly across the holographic keyboard as she tried different codes and approaches to tackling the problem.

"Keep at it, if we're going to fully understand this caper we need to know who Sydow was and how his story fits in with Axel's," Bailey reaffirmed with a stiff nod.

* * *

"Search Leader respond? Come on Criax answer me!" a Turian agent said into his earpiece after losing contact with the rest of the search party. Despite his many attempts at finding out what had just happened his calls were still going unanswered, the constant white-noise coming through his radio channel blocking any transmissions ingoing and outgoing.

"Dammit," he cursed in frustration as he brought his hand away from his ear section and gripped the frame of his assault rifle more firmly.

"Still nothing?" the Turian's Salarian partner asked over to him while he walked semi-backwards, keeping his black amphibian eyes on the far end of the corridor to make sure nothing snuck up on them.

"No, something's jamming the frequency, I can't contact the other teams and we're too far down to get a warning to the Academy. Criax's last transmission came from an area just ahead though so keep your guard up," the Turian responded back as the two came closer to another corridor that went across the one they were moving down.

Signaling for the Salarian to hold position a few feet from the opening, the Turian went down on his haunches and stealthily crept up to the left corner leading into the new corridor. After stopping, he peeked his head out into the open hallway just far enough so that his eye could get a good view of what was down it without exposing himself too much.

From his position, the agent could see the large archway to the passage junction Criax had mentioned in his last message before contact had disappeared. It was a fair ways down the corridor and on the opposite wall, but it wasn't far enough that the agent couldn't make out the unmistakable form of Torrvk standing within the archway's opening. At the moment the Turian was carefully removing the pieces of blue C-Sec armour that covered his body, revealing an odd black body suit that he had been wearing underneath. As Torrvk removed his armour and carefully set it down on the ground, the spying Turian had to force himself not to gasp when he noticed Criax's dead body slumped on its side just a foot or so away from the growing pile of armour plates.

"You bastard…" the agent spat under his breath with an enraged scowl. Pulling away from the corner, the Turian was about to signal his partner to come and join him.

However, as he was doing so he noticed a very faint air distortion suddenly whip out of nowhere off to his left side.

Before he could react or shout a warning to the Salarian, the distortion lashed out with what appeared to be an elongated section of its body, striking him hard across the side of his face with an odd energized _SVHACKK! _

"_Kree'ta!" _a very rough/deep alien voice bellowed out from the distortion the moment the object hit him, a voice that sounded like it was part man and part machine. The hit killed the Turian on impact, its force smashing his head toward an odd angle and breaking the vertebrae in his spine.

The Salarian agent that had been left to watch the rest of the corridor spun around the moment he heard the commotion, his eyes widening as he caught a fleeting glimpse of the Turian's body being dragged out of sight behind the corner he'd been crouching beside.

"Hey!" the agent barked in alarm as he tried running after him. He only managed to cross a few feet before he was suddenly yanked to a harsh stop, an invisible garrote cord having just wrapped tightly around his neck!

The agent's eyes bulged, his hands dropping his rifle and grabbing frantically at the weapon that was cutting into his windpipe. Kicking and thrashing, the agent tried shouting for help, hoping that some of the other search parties would be close enough to hear him. But his assailant only tightened the garrote and pulled harder, causing the agent to painfully arch his back and go on the tips of his toes, further cutting off his flow of air and preventing him from making anything more then a faint gurgle.  
While still struggling the Salarian tried reaching back and striking at his unknown attacker. As he desperately clawed in an attempt to free himself, he could feel an armoured head, shoulder, and two large arms belonging to the one murdering him.

But from the few wild glances he was able to cast over his shoulders, he couldn't see anything. The assassin was wearing a cloaking device!

This was the last thought in the agent's mind as his strength quickly faded away, his eyes rolling back into his head, and his throat giving out a crackling death rattle. The invisible assassin tightened the garrote cord as far as it would go and heaved the near dead Salarian a foot off the ground, swiftly finishing him off before casting his now limp body back down to the floor.

* * *

Farther away in a different corridor, two Turians were jogging toward the area that Criax's omni-tool transmission had last been located. Both were a bit on edge from the way the current situation was playing out and moved as fast as they could while still shining their rifle lights all around them, seeking any ambushers that may have been laying in wait within the dark shadows.

While they were doing this neither of them noticed the nearly invisible thin steel-cord noose hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of corridor. As one of the Turians moved ahead of the other, the one to fall behind was unfortunate enough to walk right into this masterfully laid trap. The cord noose easily fell under the Turian's chin and past his head-fringes, pulling tight around his neck the moment he unknowingly ran through it.

The agent barely gave out a soft choke of pain as the rest of the cord went taught and then yanked him up off the ground. The weight of his own body and the speed with which the cord had been pulled snapped his neck and killed him instantly as he was pulled up into the darkness of the ceiling.

Because he had been killed almost immediately however, his dead hands relaxed and allowed his rifle to drop back down to the floor.

The dead Turian's partner spun around with his weapon ready when he heard the loud clatter of the other's rifle hitting the ground. With widened eyes at seeing his partner's unused weapon lying carelessly on the metal flooring, he began sweeping his rifle light all around the area where the other had once been. The Turian tried calling his partner's name a few times, but was suddenly silenced by a massive air distortion dropping down from the shadowy ceiling right in front of him.

A millisecond before he could fire his weapon, a loud sharpening sound of metal on metal came out of the distortion right before two long serrated blades thrust forward, piercing through his abdomen and exiting out through his lower back!

The agent bucked forward and gave a gargled shout, dropping his gun while weakly grabbing at the cloaked but blood smeared blades sticking into him.  
The pain was excruciating and it only rose another notch as the mammoth distortion raised the arm that the two blades were seemingly attached to, simultaneously lifting him up three feet off the ground with it. The agent gasped as the blades slid a little deeper through his body, blue blood trickling out of his mouth from the fatal injury. With a fading vision, the Turian used all that was left of his will power to lift his head and look into what appeared to be the face of the attacker.

From what he could make out of the outline of the distortion, the assassin had a large head with long thick dreadlock like hair hanging down past it's powerful shoulders. The figure was at least eight feet tall and appeared to be wearing a mask with two large menacing eyes positioned under it's wide forehead.

As the darkness of oblivion took the Turian and his life-blood flowed from his wounds in streams, his final sight was of the two eyes briefly flashing a deep grainy red.

* * *

In another corridor not far from the last one, a Human and Turian agent were also moving toward Criax's last known position.

Suddenly however a series of loud discharges erupted from the darkness surrounding them, all of which were simultaneously followed by a bright blast of red energy.  
Caught in a deadly crossfire one of the blasts struck the Human square in the back, making him drop to his knees with a cry before another impacted into his chest. As the dead agent toppled backwards onto the floor with a smoking hole in his armoured torso, the Turian took a hit to the back of his right thigh, making him tumble down to just one knee before another exploded into his left shoulder. The crippling hit blew off most of his shoulder's armour and made him jerk sideways with a scream of pain, forcing him to drop his left hand away from his rifle.  
But he was still able to use his remaining hand to bring the rifle up and unleash a blind spray of thermal rounds across the area in front of him, shouting out in desperation as he tried scoring a hit on at least one of their attackers.  
However his rounds only ricocheted off the corridor walls, hitting nothing but air for half a second before another red blast discharged from behind and struck him in the upper back. The Turian died with a quick grunt as his body fell forward in a heap, sending him face first into the floor with his smoking weapon landing next to him.

After everything had become quiet once again, the pair's ambushers revealed themselves. Four white armoured Imperial Stormtroopers materialized out of thin air surrounding the dead agents in a perfect Kill-Box formation, each of them deactivating their cloaking devices and holding E-11 repeating Blaster Rifles in their gloved hands. After nudging the dead Turian's shoulder with the tip of his boot, the squad's commander raised a hand and pressed two fingers against the side of his iconic helmet.

"_Team 4 has been neutralized,"_ he reported through his headset in his radio-tinged voice.

* * *

"We're being ambushed, someone else is down here looking for that creature! First communications go out and now we're hearing weapons' fire in the tunnels, we have to leave before there's no one left to warn the rest of the Citadel!" a Salarian agent belonging to the last remaining search team stated back to his Asari partner, both of whom were standing back to back in the next corridor over from the Stormtrooper attack. Both agents were cautiously stepping around in a circle, keeping their rifles at the ready and their eyes peeled for the unknown enemies they now knew were stalking them.

"We can't just leave, we'll never get back in time with enough reinforcements to save the others," the Asari stated urgently, her eyes and rifle flitting about from one section to another.

"If they aren't already dead they're probably doing the exact same thing we _should_ be doing. If we leave now our odds of coming away from this alive significantly improve," the Salarian reaffirmed logically. After a few seconds of tense silence where the two rookies continued to circle around, the Asari finally nodded and pointed her rifle in a specific direction down one length of the corridor.

"Alright, we'll need to move fast then. There's an access hatch seventy meters down that way that can take us back to the surface, just keep up with me and make sure nothing sneaks up behind us." The Salarian nodded back, lifting his rifle up a bit higher across his chest in readiness.

"I'm right behind you," he stated confidently. With that the Asari took off at a brisk sprint with her partner following close at her heels.

However they only managed to run a few dozen feet before the Salarian suddenly shouted to her.

"Look out!"

This was followed by a cry of agony from the agent and a wet slicing sound like that of a blade cutting through raw flesh. Spinning around, the Asari froze and her face became stricken with horror as she saw the Salarian facing away from her, his rifle dropped to the floor and he painfully bracing himself against a faint air distortion that had materialized behind them.

This however was not the main focus of her attention; it was the cloaked saber sword blade sticking out of the center of his back, made visible to her only because it was soaked in her partner's green blood!

With a quick motion the distortion sharply withdrew the saber from the Salarian's chest, causing the rest of the blade to retract into his back and exit out through his torso.  
The Salarian wheezed as he pushed himself away from the distortion, weakly spinning around and falling to his knees. With a dead man's defiance in his eyes the agent looked into the face of the Asari, holding out a hand to her with one of his three fingers pointed toward the far end of the corridor.

"RUN!" he barked out, his voice ringing clear despite the pain of his injury. The distortion still standing behind him swung down and grabbed onto one of his head horns, arching his head back before bringing the blood-soaked blade under his chin and slitting his throat.

The speed of the cloaked entity was almost un-natural, being able to complete this instant kill a second before the Asari could even bring up her weapon!

"NO!" she cried in anger as she pulled the rifle to her shoulder and sighted what she thought was the invisible assassin's head. But before she could pull the trigger, two more air-distortions moved out from the shadows on either side of the corridor, both of them coming to a stand at the Salarian killer's flanks.

"_Krenol__!" _the largest distortion on the left ordered to the others in a rough semi-machine like voice, speaking in some alien language the Asari had never heard before.  
At it's command, the distortion on the right raised a part of its body and aimed it at the Asari, which was soon followed by a bright white light and a growing humming noise emanating from it.

Easily figuring out what the source of the light and noise was, the agent yelled and scrambled out of the way, barely avoiding the destructive white laser-beam that shot out of the weapon the distortion had activated, one which impacted into a nearby wall and blew open a moderate sized smoking crater!

Sprinting down the corridor as fast as she could, the Asari had to awkwardly dash from side to side as the assassin fired its laser weapon twice more after her, this time blasting smaller craters into the walls as it narrowed the precision of the weapon.  
The agent's luck quickly ran out though, for the on the third attempt the assassin's blast skimmed over the top of her shoulder, its intense heat and power cooking her skin through her armour and sending her spinning sideways to the ground. Baring her teeth to ignore the pain, she quickly rolled out of the fall and dove up from the floor into a dark side-passage to get out of the assassin's line of fire.

Pulling herself into a sitting position with her back leaning against the wall hidden to the shooter, she quickly turned and pointed her rifle-light down the passageway.

"…Shit," she hissed to herself after giving an exhausted breath. With the illumination from her flashlight she could see that the passageway was sealed off by a closed door, one that had a glowing red hologram floating across it showing that it was locked and couldn't be opened without the appropriate code.

Suddenly the thump of a heavy foot rang faintly off the metal of the corridor's flooring, followed by another and another, showing that one of the cloaked assassins was making their way over towards her position. Cringing deeply and baring her teeth again to dispel the sting coming from her fried shoulder/neck muscles, the Asari lifted her rifle and started tapping frantically into the holographic interface built into its side, setting the weapon's destructive power to the highest setting it was capable of.  
The footsteps were getting slightly louder, the assassin gliding closer to the passageway with phenomenal speed.

The agent continued to type away at the rifle's settings, her hands starting to tremble slightly with each passing moment. Breathing deeply to calm her nerves she imputed the last code, powering the rifle up to maximum before lifting it next to her head with both hands, preparing herself to spring around the corner and face her hunter head on.

The thumps continued as the assassin drew nearer. The Asari steeled herself, blowing out slow deliberate breaths to calm her rapidly beating heart, casting her narrowed eyes over to the corner that was blocking her from the cloaked being's sight.

With one final breath the agent clenched her jaw tight and lunged around the corner, whipping the rifle up and clamping her finger on the trigger. The gun kicked back furiously in her hands, its barrel glowing hot as it spat out a volley of superheated rounds at the figure that had been creeping up on her.  
But shockingly the distortion, which also happened to be the biggest out of the three, had been faster then the Asari had anticipated.

In the time she had been hearing it move down the corridor it had been able to masterfully come within arm's reach of the corner she'd been hiding behind.

Now as she jumped out and began shooting with her predicted distance of the target being almost completely off, her thermal rounds missed the giant assassin by an inch and allowed it the opportunity it needed to strike the Asari across the chest, knocking her backwards while harshly scraping against her burn injury!

"_Neenak! Yeayah!"_ it shouted in its synthesized alien voice as whatever melee weapon it was using swiped upward against her body, practically clotheslining her onto her back and sending the rifle flying from her grasp down the corridor.

First disoriented from being struck to the ground, and then going to writhing in agony from the pain in her shoulder, the Asari could only weakly look up at the distortion that now loomed over her prostrate form.

Except it was now no longer a distortion. Apparently a few of the agent's wild rounds had managed to inflict some small amount of damage on whatever this thing was.

The assassin's cloaking field was flickering in quick intervals all over its body, evidently unable to sustain the distortion that had bended the corridor's red lighting around it. After a few quick seconds the device failed completely, the field flickering away with accompanying sparks of blue electricity and revealing the assassin's true form to the Asari.

Some of the agent's weakened strength returned to her in a flash, adrenaline skyrocketing through her system, as did her fear of the terrifying creature that now stood before her.

The assassin was a tall well-muscled Human with tanned skin; at least he appeared to be. Anatomically the figure was male, appearing to be mostly Human but with the head of a _machine._  
In his right hand he held what appeared to be a long fighting staff stood up vertically at his side, one which was richly detailed with strong cutting designs stretching along its entire shaft. The top of the staff was a pointed oval of sorts, looking almost like the closed head of a snake, while the bottom end of the staff flared outward in the shape and design of a cobra's hood, fitted with a large purple gem in its center.

The assassin wore a woven purple shroud around his waist and thighs reaching down to just above his knees, with ornate armoured greaves wrapping around his shins and leather footpads covering the bottoms of his naked feet, almost like some weird kind of combat sandals. A long dark green length of cloth hung down over the area between his legs, connected to a branching decorated belt that also went around his waist.

As the Asari's widened eyes began traveling up his body, she started taking in more details of this bizarre creature. The entire center of the assassin's trim torso was adorned by a piece of flexible black material, one that covered his stomach and pectoral regions, but not his sides.  
His large arms were mostly bare save for two thick metal bands that circled the middle of his bicep/tricep area, as well as two gauntlets that covered a portion of his forearms.

All of these were just as equally detailed as the rest of his outfit, but the gauntlet on his _left_ arm was far more elaborate and covered everything all the way up to his elbow. This one seemed to be built from several graceful curving sections, and had many unique figures carved into its sides amongst the rest of the usual crisscrossing patterns.  
Along with covering the assassin's entire forearm, the gauntlet also transitioned into a deadly hand/glove weapon, with a curved plate going over the back of his hand and connecting to five long sharp metal claws that encased each of his fingers and thumb. A circular blue stone was fitted within the very center of the hand-plate near his knuckles.

Travelling up even further, the Asari saw an armoured collar piece of armour that covered both his shoulders and curved down over the top portion of the black fabric he wore on his torso, a collar that was made up of straight evenly spaced lines.

Finally her eyes settled on the assassin's head, the one that was definitely machine and not Human.

The creature's head had a forward inclining, very thick two-foot long neck made of dark heavily engraved metal, which leveled the assassin's overall height out at almost exactly eight feet tall. Overlapping plates rose up the back of the neck, their edges flaring out slightly on both sides. Two smaller flaps of green fabric hung down loosely from behind the jaw of the head, with two strange half-circle flaps fitting snuggly on either side just above those.

At the moment the assassin had his body slightly turned to the side, his head looking down toward a small smoking device attached to the metal band on his left arm, one which was being partially covered by a stream of dark red blood trickling out of a graze wound that one of the Asari's rounds had sliced across his skin. With a low mechanized growl after appraising the damage done to his body and cloaking device, the giant creature slowly turned its head back to her, giving the agent a full view of the face that adorned the head itself.

The head seemed even more detailed then the other pieces that covered the assassin's body, if that was possible. It was built from the same dark material as the rest of it's armour and was fashioned into the head of an animal, one that the Asari recognized as a creature renowned for roaming the most desolate of places on Earth.

The assassin's mechanical head was that of a dog, a Jackal to be specific, with sharp evenly spaced ears sticking straight up out of its head, a long mouthless muzzle that jutted forth from the face, and two menacing crystal eyes that shone a bright blue against the darkness of the corridor!

The half-circle flaps behind the Jackal's jaw flared open as the creature's gaze fell upon the agent, its glowing eyes flashing even brighter.

That was when all reason abandoned the Asari, her unexplainable fear of this demonic creature overriding all of her C-Sec training.  
Franticly and without coordination the agent shoved herself backwards across the floor, scampering away in an awkward crabwalk that resulted in her slipping on her hands and heels or falling over herself.

The giant Jackal humanoid did not give chase; he merely cocked his head to the side, the mechanized canine face betraying no emotion as he watched her attempt to flee from him.

This was all short lived however, for before the retreating Asari could retreat any further a familiar white laser beam shot out from back down the corridor, flashing a safe distance past the Jackal assassin and striking the agent directly in the chest under her sternum!

The beam ripped through her torso and exited out through her back, killing her before she could even scream. Her body crumbled limply onto the floor, her limbs flattening out as they lost the strength to support her weight. The beam left behind a faintly smoking hole in her chest about four inches wide, the blue flesh surrounding it being instantly cauterized and blackened from the blast's impact along with the armour that had covered it.

* * *

At seeing his target dispatched before his eyes, Anubis (of the original Stargate Movie) angrily spun his torso around to his two companions, the large Jackal headpiece he wore turning robotically over his shoulder while his grip on the Ma'Tok staff weapon he held by his side tightened viciously.

The Asari had been his, _his_ to destroy as he saw fit!  
But in their renowned arrogance, one of the mad dogs that had been sent along with him, one of the ruthless blood crazed fiends molded within the deep scorching deserts of Salusa Secundus, had taken the opportunity from him!

Standing a few yards farther down the corridor behind him were the two other distortions that had aided in the ambush. The one that had just killed the agent was deactivating his cloaking device, flashing into existence with his right arm still extended and his smoking weapon still pointed at the Asari's body.

The weapon in question held by the dark humanoid figure was a small easily concealable Lasgun, one specifically requisitioned for this crusade from the vast stockpiles of the House Harkonnen on the spice planet of Arrakis, also known as _Dune_ to the layman.

If you were able to take your eyes away from the intricately crafted weapon, you would be able to see that the hand holding the laser pistol did indeed belong to one of the soldier-fanatics of the former House Corrino…to one of the notorious Sardaukar Terror-Troopers!

The Sardaukar holding the Lasgun was a large man with broad shoulders, adorned from head to toe in a menacing face-helmet and a sleek black suit of armour that made him almost blend in with the corridor's dark surroundings, nearly negating the need for a cloaking device completely. Without a word the Sardaukar backward-spun the pistol on his finger and slid it into a nearly invisible holster on his utility belt, one that also held a leather sheath containing a short saber-sword hanging off his opposite hip.

Anubis turned to face the Trooper fully, the fingers on his left hand tensing slightly and making the sharp claws of his glove-weapon flare outward in a show of force. The Jackal-guard's fury had nearly reached the boiling point, making him want nothing more than to strike down the masked assassin for his insolence.

But before he could do anything, the second distortion calmly walked up beside the silent Terror-Trooper, the very one that was carrying the green blood soaked saber that had dispatched the Salarian agent earlier.  
Immediately the distortion's cloaking device shut down and allowed the second Sardaukar to appear out of thin air.

This third assassin looked identical to the one that had shot the Asari, with the same armour and the same nightmarish mask making up the front of his helmet. At the moment he was casually wiping off the blood that covered the blade of his sword with a white cloth, removing the green substance while it was still fresh so that it would not stain the blade's silver metal. After doing this the Sardaukar sheathed his saber and neatly folded the blood-damp cloth before placing it in one of the pouches on his own belt.

After casting a short glance down at the body of the Asari and then another directed at Anubis, the Sardaukar lifted both his gloved hands up to his helmet and pressed a small button located just under the area where his right ear would be. There was a quick hiss as the helmet disengaged from the rest of the suit before the dark fanatic lifted it deliberately from his head.

The Sardaukar had flaming red hair cut short to his scalp, and a weathered face lined with scars and pot-marks across his cheeks. His eyes whose colour was indeterminable in the corridor's deep lighting were hard and unfeeling, even as he looked down upon the Asari's mangled body once again.

"You let her see you…" the Sardaukar stated coldly in a gravely, faintly wizened voice, as if the vocal cords in his throat weren't used very often. With a grim expression the fanatic turned back to Anubis, staring at him scornfully before giving a small sneer of disgust.

"You Jackals are becoming more and more reckless with each mission we undertake."  
That comment made the Jackal-guard growl lowly within his headpiece, his left hand flexing widely and baring the glove-weapon's claws in their fiercest show of readiness.

However the Sardaukar ignored this threat completely, merely holding his helmet within the crook of his arm and marching past the fuming giant unfazed.

"Bring the bodies, we must leave this place before C-Sec is made aware to our presence," he ordered to his two companions without looking back.

Anubis watched the Trooper leave with another growl, unable to believe that he was now being given orders by one of these madmen.  
Surely the First Prime to Lord Apophis, the commander and leader of this current raid, would never allow such impudence to slide during one of his operations?

The thought of the First Prime punishing the red haired Sardaukar when he told him of this incident brought a smug smile to Anubis's concealed face, allowing his rage to dissipate into an odd feeling of joy. He had already had to put up with these tiresome fanatics for the better part of a decade, it would make that long annoyance so much more worth it to see one of them be made an example of…harshly.

Turning his body back to the first Sardaukar still standing in front of him, Anubis cocked his mechanized Jackal head and regarded the armoured soldier with a mocking query in the language of the Goa'uld, one that was made all the more menacing by the resounding synthetic sound the headpiece gave to his voice.  
The masked Sardaukar stayed silent, cocking his own head before gesturing to the body of the Asari and nodding once, as if saying 'After You' through his movements alone.

The Jackal-guard caught on to this subtle message right away, causing him to give a sneer and spin around before advancing on the dead agent.

Now was not the time to be engaging in a duel to the death with one of the conquerors of Dune…

…there would be plenty of opportunities for that after this job was finished.

* * *

"Got it! The file should be coming through now!" Moira declared with a final firm jab of her keyboard's execute button. The main screen on the wall flashed for a brief second before a familiar beige file appeared across its surface.  
"Finally, that thing was dug in deeper then an Alabama Tick," Bailey commented as he got up from the chair he had wheeled over to the side of Moira's desk after it became evident that this search was going to be a long wait. Chellick was sitting in a similar chair on the other side of the desk, leaning against the knuckles of his hand with his elbow propped on the desk's surface.

"How much are you guys willing to bet that something else is going to go wrong right before we can actually read this thing?" Chellick asked with a trace of pessimism to his voice.

It had now been almost _twenty_ minutes since Moira had tried bringing out Captain Sydow's file, with each and every attempt being dogged or outright stopped by a myriad of problems existing within the certain area of the Alliance's databases that the file existed in.

(From an interstellar government you'd think they'd have the technology and knowhow to keep tabs on this sort of thing. Come on people, am I right or am I right?)

In response to that remark Moira scoffed before casting Chellick an offended look.

"Oh ye of little faith," she stated with a shake of her head before turning back to the main screen.  
Chellick smirked and was about to apologize for doubting her abilities when suddenly, before the file had even begun downloading for them to see properly, a small chiming alarm beeped at Moira's terminal and a large red symbol flashed across the wall screen. Immediately the three snapped their attention toward the flashing screen with puzzled looks.

"An _Erosion_ Warning?!" Moira stated out loud after jerking forward in her seat, her voice displaying a profound sense of disbelieve and bewilderment. Bailey blew out a defeated breath and closed his eyes, while Chellick gave a dignified Captain Picard face-palm at their continuing bad luck.

"Come _on_! What's next?!" the Hawaiian technician asked the universe angrily as she began attacking the keyboard again, diving in to the file's material codes to see if she could work around the erosion and reconstruct the data.

"What's an Erosion Warning?" Bailey asked quickly as he came back around to her terminal.

"It means that the information is still there but the file itself has become so corrupted by faulty data-streams or its systems are too fragile to transfer to the Citadel's hardware that it's in danger of slowly deleting itself, or _Eroding_ away, from the mainframe," Moira responded tersely as she worked frantically at the controls, her trained hands flashing across the keys in a pattern so fast and erratic that Bailey was having a hard time following it.

"Can you fix it before it eats itself?" Bailey asked, his voice steeled as he looked up at the flashing red symbol on the main viewer, imagining that at this very moment all the information they needed on Captain Sydow was flaking away into the vast reaches of cyber-space.

"Like I said before, this stuff is nearly two hundred years old. When you dig up an ancient relic you try to keep it exposed to the outside air as little as possible, otherwise it begins to crumble and fall apart. The same principle applies to old computer files such as this. I can't save the file but I can copy all of its contents into a brand new dossier that can preserve everything that was written down, even the corrupted stuff, which will allow us to try and reconstruct it later," Moira explained, her eyes remaining fiercely glued to the terminal. Bailey arched his eyebrows and gave a thin smile.

"Since when did you become an expert on archeological procedure?" Moira didn't answer, her concentration was too focused on saving the dying file before it could be lost completely. Beside them Chellick pulled his head out of his face-palm and held up his other hand with its index talon extended.

"For the record I'd like to point out that I _did_ call this unfortunate mishap, so if anybody wants to throw some credits my way that would be awesome."

Immediately despite the need for focus, Moira and Bailey turned their heads over to the Turian with annoyed expressions.

"Shut up Chellick," they both said at the same time before looking back at the screen.

* * *

Back in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Market District, Torrvk was using the butt of Criax's rifle to smash or break apart sections of his own. He had done the same to the pieces of his armour that he had removed earlier, using it to dent them partially before laying them all out next to his former partner's body. After damaging his rifle to make it look like he had used it to fight off an attacker, Torrvk aimlessly threw both rifles down next to the crime scene. Amazingly the loud noises generated by this work still did not rouse the partially cocooned Xenomorph, as Torrvk knew it wouldn't.

Because of the knowledge given to him by his master, the mysterious Lord Viraden, Torrvk had learned everything he could about the Xenomorphs and their various incarnations shown in the films and video games that had portrayed them throughout history.

This particular surviving Xenomorph was a special case that had perked Viraden's interest not too long ago, and it had only been because of Torrvk himself that his master had found out about its unique gift in the first place.

Moments after the Battle for the Market Corridor, with all the chaos and confusion still surrounding the incident, Torrvk had been able to use his C-Sec identity to discretely slip onto the scene and collect samples of the creatures' acidic blood from the areas that they had been slain in. Even though their bodies had mysteriously disappeared at the battle's end, the pools of blood that had burned through the Corridor's flooring had remained intact, giving Torrvk ample opportunity to retrieve and preserve the DNA locked within what was left of the acid before an organized lock-down of the district could be put into effect.

Minutes after collecting them he had contacted and met with a secret emergency courier, to which he handed over his finds and then sent the samples off to the hidden area of the Mass Effect galaxy where Viraden was amassing his army.

To Torrvk's immense surprise the courier would return less then two hours later, bearing with him a kit of specialized equipment and instructions from Viraden himself, instructions which stated his gratitude for the Turian's service and then charged him with a mission to retrieve the final Xenomorph that C-Sec had openly reported as having escaped the battle. Whatever the Xeno's blood had shown to Viraden and his scientists, the Dark Lord now wanted it.

And now after seeing the creature in its current state for himself, Torrvk had a good idea as to why.

After receiving his orders he had made sure to put himself in the right place at the right time to be chosen by the Academy's commanders for the C-Sec search party that was going to be sent down after the creature, while also using the black earpiece that had come with the courier's kit beforehand to coordinate with the strike team that Viraden had sent ahead to aid him.

The planned ambush had gone off perfectly, with Criax and the search teams being none-the-wiser about his true motivations or intentions.  
He knew that his usefulness as a spy within C-Sec had come to an end once he was given this job, it was now time for him to fake his own death and join the ranks of Viraden's armada in earnest!

All that was needed now after demolishing his weapon and armour was his DNA to make it appear as if he had died along with the others. Reaching behind his back he drew a short black metaled combat knife. Rolling up the sleeve on his right arm, he sliced a deep gash across the top of his forearm and squeezed the wound tightly, making it ooze streams of blue blood onto the floor and on top of some of his dented armour pieces. After a sufficient amount of blood was milked out of the wound Torrvk activated his omni-tool and ran an application of medi-gel, healing the gash within seconds.  
Satisfied with his work he stood up and retrieved the humming sphere still sitting on the container in front of him.

After shutting the jamming device off and slipping it into one of the hidden pouches his body suit contained, he looked back up at the comatose Xenomorph, almost with a fondness in his Turian features.

"She is a magnificent creature, is she not?" Torrvk asked out loud to the darkened junction, the intensive special training given to him by some of Lord Viraden's finest commanders allowing him to sense the three figures that had just crept up behind him almost without a sound.

There was a pause before the deep voice that had answered him through his earpiece spoke again, but this time from the middle figure standing within the wide archway.

"She is a beast of great power, meant to be used as nothing more then a weapon to hunt and slay Lord Viraden's enemies."

Torrvk scoffed at the figure's words, shaking his head amusedly as he slowly turned around to face his fellow assassins.  
"You think in such rigid military terms. Have you no appreciation for the raw power she will generate from her body alone?" Torrvk goaded to the figures, all of which were actually air distortions generated by the trio's cloaking devices. The middle figure said nothing in response to this; he and the others merely raising their arms and deactivating the devices strapped to their belts.

All three of the figures flashed into existence, revealing themselves to be Goa'uld Serpent Guards!

With their dark grey armour, large engraved Cobra headpieces, and glowing red eyes, they were a fearsome group that made even Torrvk's eyes widen slightly. All three of the Serpent Jaffa were tall muscular men, which was expected considering their race's warrior mentality. Each of them held staff weapons in their hands.

The Jaffa in the middle, the one that had spoken, stepped forward into the Xenomorph's lair still saying nothing in answer to Torrvk's question. Taking the hint that he wasn't going to get an answer period Torrvk stepped to the side and swept an arm up to indicate the Xenomorph.

"My part in this operation is over, it is now for you and your men to safely bring him his prize," Torrvk stated in a reminding tone. The leader of the Serpent Guards looked at him before turning his body and gazing up at the shallow breathing Alien.

"And we shall," the Jaffa stated firmly.

Just after he said this, a stomping of armoured boots began to echo loudly from down the corridor. A few seconds went by before the red haired Sardaukar stormed in to the junction, closely followed by the second helmeted one and the enormous form of Anubis. The second soldier-fanatic was carrying the limp body of the Salarian agent the red haired man had killed, to which he dumped unceremoniously close to Criax's body. This was followed by Anubis leaning forward and roughly sliding the body of the Asari from his shoulder to land in a heap next to the Salarian.  
More stomps followed seconds after this, these ones coming from another Sardaukar carrying the body of the Salarian that had been garroted in the corridor not far from here, as well as the frightening visage of a mighty Horus-Guard (and I'm talking about the one's also from the original Stargate Movie!) who dragged the body of the Salarian's Turian partner.

These two dumped their burdens in line with the others and then took up positions around the junction, aiming their activated staff weapons or Lasguns up at the Xenomorph. As that happened the Serpent Guard leader turned back toward the large archway his two counterparts were standing beside just in time to see the squad of Stormtroopers march around the corner, two of who were carrying the bodies of the Human and Turian from Team 4 over their shoulders. While the two troopers dropped the bodies with the others, the Storm commander approached the lead Serpent Guard.

_"Perimeter has been double checked, there's nobody else down here to tell anyone what we've been up to,"_ the commander reported shortly.  
"Good," the Serpent leader rumbled from within his headpiece as the Stormtroopers took their places amongst the others.  
Taking a look around at the growing number of diverse killers, Torrvk frowned as he glanced down at the line of bodies laid at his feet.

"So that's teams 2, 4, and 5. Where is Team 3?" Torrvk asked over to the leader with a cocked brow-ridge.

That was when the largest figure out of the entire group rounded the corner carrying the bodies of the two Turians on its bulky shoulders. It still had its cloaking device up and appeared only as a shadowy outline, while amazingly its footfalls were the quietest of any of them, uttering only as faint taps against the floor's tiled metal like a Jaguar stalking its prey.  
The two Serpent Guards stepped aside to allow the distortion passage, the mammoth entity silently gliding into the junction and depositing its baggage with a simple snap movement of its arms.

Then, with everyone's eyes on it, the distortion raised its said arms and pressed a button on one of the gauntlets that encircled its thick forearms.

The distortion's cloaking device shut down, dispelling the see-through field and revealing the giant's true form to everyone.

"Incredible…" Torrvk breathed as he gazed up at the truly alien creature. During his months of secret tutorage under Viraden's specialists, Torrvk had seen and even trained with many of the people surrounding him at this very moment. He knew all about the Jaffa, the Sardaukar, the Stormtroopers, and he even knew about the mysterious Predators, the mighty race of intergalactic game hunters.

But in his time amongst the diverse warriors of Viraden's army, he had never once had the opportunity to see a real Predator in the flesh, be it dead or captured or otherwise. Many of the people Torrvk had trained with had said that Viraden _did_ have several Predators in his employ, but that they were a reclusive group that didn't mingle with the rest of the army and were rarely ever seen.

That was until now.

The creature standing before Torrvk was indeed a Predator, but it was vastly different from what he had been expecting.

The Predator's body was large and muscled, as he had thought it would be, but it was taller and more reptilian then the ones he had studied about. Nearly all of its skin was a deep brown, looking black in most places, with patches of smooth whiter scales going across the front of its torso and down the insides of its arms and legs like the underbelly of a crocodile.

Its armour was quite like that of the Super-Predators from the 2010 movie _Predators_, being mostly made up of sleek reflective black plates that adorned only parts of its torso, shoulders, and legs. At the same time though, this Predator's armour appeared to be a mixture of the Super Predators' technology and that of the more Classic Predators.  
An example of this being instead of one singular blade like that of the lead Mr. Black character from _Predators_, this Predator had _two_ serrated Wrist Blades attached to the gauntlet on its right forearm. The pectoral portion of its torso was covered by a thick Classic-Pred looking steel chest-plate, ornately designed and potted with battle-scars and etched-in symbols taken from the Yautja language.

The Predator's iconic Bio-mask was an almost exact lookalike to Mr. Black's, with the exception of it not having an unknown alien jaw-bone attached to the bottom of its chin. The Plasma Caster attached to its left shoulder was of the model used by the Classics, rather then the Gatling gun style favoured by the Super-Preds.

One major difference that set this Predator apart from the Super Predators seen in the movie was the presence of a compact Combi-Stick clipped to the side of the many worn straps going around its lower waist, one that was richly detailed in the symbols and beadwork denoting it as the weapon of a Yautja Spear-Master.

Torrvk cocked his head, gazing at the many other strange details and characteristics of this intriguing warrior. The clashing of technologies and armours added a strange and menacing look to the hunter. Every item adorning its body was heavily personalized, but much of it appeared as though the personalization had not been done by this Predator in particular.

That was when it suddenly all clicked together for Torrvk. This Predator had not created most of the equipment it was using; it had taken them from _other_ Predators, probably ones belonging to both the Super and Classic groups!

It all made sense, and it made Torrvk a bit more wary. The Predator standing before him was obviously a Hunter of Hunters, having slain several of its kinsmen and taken their technologies or weapons to improve its own killing prowess, while at the same time displaying these spoils of combat on its body like some kind of trophies.

The head of this Predator-Hunter also held a few indications of its anti-social practices towards its own species. Its more swept back dreadlocks were partially decorated with tiny beads made from pieces of bone, some of which unmistakably looked as though they had once belonged to the fingers or jaw-mandibles of other Predators!

"A most impressive specimen," Torrvk remarked approvingly as he looked the deadly Yautja up and down. The Predator assassin snapped its head over and locked its reflective black eyes with Torrvk's, uttering out a low threatening growl mixed with a series of soft clicking noises.  
Originating from within a small hole built just off to the side of its mask's left eye, a familiar trio of red laser beams abruptly shone out toward the Turian, causing three corresponding red dots arranged in a triangle to materialize on his forehead.

After an initial moment of surprise the Turian agent's face became hard, his hand tensing toward the silenced Carniflex he had transferred to the belt of his body-suit.

However before either of the assassins could make the first move the lead Serpent Guard stepped in between them facing toward the angered Predator. Holding his staff weapon diagonally across his chest in a casual but defensive posture, the Guard arched his back slightly so that his Cobra head could look up into the face of the towering behemoth.

"Enough! You were not summoned here to kill members of my strike-force," he ordered to the Hunter in a low but firm tone. Using the head of his staff the Serpent Guard pointed toward the cocooned Xenomorph.

"Sedate the creature and prepare it for transport."

Cocking its head slightly, the Predator-Hunter decided to turn its attention from Torrvk to look down into the glowing red eyes of the Guard's headpiece, its tri-laser now locking onto him instead.  
The Guard's dark skinned hands tightened in readiness around the shaft of his staff weapon, just incase the Yautja killer decided not to heed his orders.

But after holding his ground, not flinching an inch even in the face of possible instant death, the Serpent leader was treated to the Predator finally deactivating his Caster sights and turning away toward the Xenomorph.

With quick jabs of his taloned fingers, the Predator lifted his left arm and began tapping into the set of keys located on the side of his armoured gauntlet. After imputing a specific code into the mechanism, a short telescopic barrel extended out over the top of his scaly wrist.

Straightening his arm and aiming the barrel at the Xenomorph's neck, the Predator killer sighted his left eye down the length of this arm and held his index finger over the firing button.

Torrvk drew his Carniflex and joined the other assassins as they pointed their weapons up at the creature, all of the group waiting tensely with their fingers squeezed against triggers or pressed against staff switches.

With a quick tap of the button the Yautja's gauntlet fired out a familiar engraved tranquilizer dart no bigger then a toothpick, flashing up out of the barrel and stabbing into the Xeno's exposed neck, sinking in until it was nearly invisible.

Now finally aware to the present danger it was in, the Xenomorph jerked out of its slumber with an echoing screech, its mouth unhinging and baring its teeth at the encircling group of people. With a loud chorus of hisses, the still injured Alien ripped its arms away from its chest and sunk its claws into the black resin it had coated over the walls, using its arms to push itself away from the wall and out of its partial cocoon.

All of the assassins widened their stances and brought their eyes closer to the sights of their weapons, each of them locking on to the Alien's head. However not all of them followed the others' example, for even when the lead Serpent Guard readied himself for action, the Predator did nothing. It merely stood stock still, silently gazing up at the thrashing creature with a small cock of its head.

The Xenomorph was now beginning to completely rip itself free of its self made wrappings, tearing off the swaths of slime covered resin and wrenching the back of its head from the nook it had placed it in.

Torrvk's eyes widened with intrigue as he gazed upon the areas of the creature's body that had been hidden to him up until now.

The back of the Xeno's head had widened slightly from its usual elongated look, branching outward with small but sharp crests and horn formations going up along its sides. Its arms were now larger, they too containing more sharp horns traveling up its forearms and cresting over its shoulders.

Suddenly the Xeno screamed again and ripped its entire torso free, allowing it to lean forward and slither its long tail out from behind itself. The tail was also much bigger than any normal Xenomorph, with larger plates and a much more pronounced curved spike fitted to its end.

Pieces of resin fell to the floor in shreds, the creature continuing to rip itself further and further out of the cocoon. All of the assassins held their fire, continuing to wait until the Predator's serum took effect.  
But one of the Stormtroopers was not inclined to wait until that happened.

"_The tranquilizer is taking too long! We have to stop it before it can get enough room to attack!"_ he shouted before lunging closer toward the Alien with his blaster a second away from firing. But as he lunged he passed next to the stoic Predator, not noticing that at that moment the Yautja was balling his right fist.

Just before the trooper was about to clear past him, the Predator lashed back with his arm and smashed the hardest point of his elbow straight into the trooper's helmeted face, sending the man sprawling to the floor unconscious. All of this happened within the blink of an eye, with the Predator not even glancing back while he did it!

The other assassins didn't give the sleeping Stormtrooper a second thought, keeping their focus trained solely on their quarry. The Xeno was ripping away the last of the cocoon, moments from springing forth and engaging its attackers.  
But it was becoming evident that the Predator's dart serum was now finally taking its toll on the creature's system.

Its movements were becoming sluggish like a drunkard, its hisses growing weak and confused sounding.

After a few more thrashes and pulls the cocoon finally tore free and allowed the partially deformed Xeno a clear path.  
But instead of charging, it gave a dying cry before reaching out a clawed hand toward the Predator, using the last of its might to lung down at him. All it managed to accomplish though was a blurred swipe before it tumbled from the resin wall and slammed down in a heap on the debris-strewn ground at the Yautja's feet, its breathing and chest movements slowing until it was obvious to even an idiot that the Alien was out cold.

"Oh how the mighty have fallen," Torrvk quoted with an amused smirk down to the sleeping creature as he and the others de-activated or holstered their weapons.

While the Predator produced a strange collar device from several pouches on his armour and set to work encasing it around the Xenomorph's neck, the lead Serpent Guard made a gesture toward the three Sardaukar, giving them a silent order. The red haired one nodded and stepped over the bodies of the search teams towards that of Criax with his two other counterparts behind him. After grouping around the dead Turian, all three men knelt down and began pulling small mechanical pieces out of their belts.

While the two helmeted Sardaukar handed their set of parts over to the red haired man, he himself began connecting them together into an odd looking diamond shaped device with a black sphere centered in the middle.

Off to the side the Storm commander glanced down at a chronometer he had strapped to his wrist just under the lip of the armour that covered his forearm.  
"_We're almost out of time, the survivors' internal acid capsules will break the second their counters run out,"_ he stated over to the lead Serpent Guard.

"Hopefully they haven't given into the fear of their impending doom and asked for a bargain in exchange for their lives," Torrvk remarked next to the leader.

"The weapon is armed," the red haired Sardaukar interrupted without looking up, clicking the last mechanism into place on the device and causing a deep red glow to suddenly shine from within the black sphere. After seeing them gingerly place the device on the ground next to Criax's chest and then back away, the Serpent Guard turned back toward the Xenomorph.  
The Predator was standing up, having fitted the collar to the Alien and bound its wrists together with a steel cord.

Using only one arm he lifted the tranquilized Xeno into the air and folded it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With a nod from the Predator the lead Serpent Guard made a sharp rallying gesture with his arm before hefting his staff weapon and marching down the largest dark passage that the Xenomorph's junction lair connected to.

"We must leave now, our mission is nearly complete. The transport for our escape is moments ahead," he stated clearly a second before Torrvk and the burdened Predator-killer formed up on his flanks, followed closely behind by the rest of the strike force with the squad of Stormtroopers bringing up the rear guard, one of who had the misfortune of having to carry over his own shoulder the unconscious Stormtrooper the Predator had laid out earlier.

* * *

For a very quick couple of minutes the parade of killers from different universes marched through the darkened corridor in a close but disorderly gaggle. No one spoke a word, all of them staying alert and watching their surroundings for any witnesses to their passing.

Eventually they came to a smaller corridor running perpendicular to their own, cutting off any way for them to go forward any further.  
However instead of turning left or right to continue on their way, the lead Serpent raised his fist back to the group, signaling for them to stop. Frowning in confusion after looking around the area, Torrvk soon found that it was not this corridor that the leader was interested in; it was the wall directly ahead of them.

Torrvk cocked his head as he saw the Serpent leader walk up and place a hand on the bare grimy wall for a brief moment before pulling away. It was just a wall, with no indications of a secret passage way or anything behind it.

Where was this escape craft they'd mentioned?

Abruptly however the Turian traitor got his answer. After motioning for the two helmeted Sardaukar, the Serpent leader and the others backed away from the wall, forcing Torrvk to do the same unless he wanted to get crushed by the larger Anubis and Horus-Guard that had moved in front of him. The two soldier-fanatics advanced on the wall ahead of the group, both of them drawing their Lasgun pistols and adjusting small hidden power gauges built into their sides. After choosing a place to stand at an even distance away from each other, they both aimed their guns and fired.

Two continuous beams of blinding white energy shot out from the pistols' barrels and struck into the wall's metal, easily burning through it to whatever lay on the other side. After making the initial incision, the Sardaukar began carefully lifting their arms higher and melting two glowing molten-hot lines eight feet up the wall. While they did this a blast of cold air suddenly began shooting into the corridor, blowing against the group with a loud rushing sound.

A moment passed before the Sardaukar eventually cut to the height they wanted, both of them suddenly turning their pistols inward and cutting along a horizontal plain until their two beams met each other in the middle. After meeting up and remaining connected for a brief second the two soldiers finally shut down their weapons, their laser beams snuffing out immediately with a hiss.

Rapidly cooling from the strong currents of air rushing in along the lines that had been burned through the metal, a smoking rectangle now decorated the corridor wall.

Silently brushing past Torrvk without a word or even a command from the lead Serpent Guard, the Predator-killer advanced between the two Sardaukar on the superheated outline.  
With a mighty grunt while still carrying the Xenomorph over his shoulder, the Predator lifted his right leg and slammed the bottom of his padded foot into the center of the rectangle.

Immediately an explosion of silvery white light assaulted the group's eyes, accompanied by a harsh increase in the cold air that had been pressing against them up until now!

Torrvk threw up a hand to shield his retinas before adjusting to the sudden burning illumination that flooded into the corridor, turning the night-like tunnels he had been travelling through for the last hour into a breezy daytime. The loud rushing sound generated by the wind had now turned into a violent howl, sounding more like something you would expect at the top of a mountain then in the bowls of the Citadel.

Immediately Torrvk realized what had happened a second before seeing exactly what was in front of them.

The Sardaukar had just cut an opening through the hull of the Citadel itself, allowing the team a makeshift exit out of the Presidium and off the station!

As the rectangular piece of wall fell away from the Predator's foot and tumbled down through the Presidium's atmosphere bubble into the abyss below the station, which gave the group a breathtaking view of the endless swirling patterns of the Serpent Nebula and the massive underside of the Citadel Tower hanging out several thousand feet above their position, an alarming thought occurred to Torrvk.

They had just put themselves on C-Sec's radar!

The Serpent Guards had neglected to tell him this part of the plan.

Shoving his way past Anubis and the Horus-Guard while fighting to keep his balance against the raging wind, the Turian reached out a hand and grabbed the lead Serpent Guard by the shoulder, jerking his large torso sideways slightly.

"C-Sec will have detected a breech in the hull! They'll have ships here within minutes to investigate!" Torrvk shouted into the face of the Cobra headpiece to be heard over the constant howling. Without warning the Guard's right hand flashed up and locked around Torrvk's wrist, harshly prying the Turian's arm away from his shoulder twisted at an odd angle.  
While Torrvk grimaced and ripped his hand free of the other man's grasp, the Serpent Guard turned away and pressed the polished gemstone built into the armoured gauntlet plate that went over the back of his said right hand.

Right away a high-pitched humming/whooshing sound began to overpower the roar of the wind. Everyone backed up another step as a section of a dark brown hull belonging to a large ship de-cloaked out of nowhere, rippling the air around it and flickering into existence several dozen feet ahead of them before hovering over to within spitting distance of the hole the Predator had just kicked open!

* * *

Meanwhile far up in the Citadel Defense Headquarters, one of the station's external sensors began broadcasting an urgent maintenance signal, warning the current operators of an exposer in the Citadel's hull plating.  
The Headquarters itself had calmed down considerably since Axel's dramatic escape, allowing all of the operators and officers that had been assigned to stay on duty after the embarrassing ordeal to work comfortably at their stations without the stress of a crisis on their minds. Currently all of them were focusing on damage control or repair jobs, most of which involved fixing the ruckus caused to their systems by the terrorists' Rick-Roll video.

While this was happening, one of the operators sitting at the ring of consoles set up on the main circular platform in the middle of the chamber suddenly noticed the hull warning pop up on his screen, originating from the area where Torrvk and his hit-squad were making their getaway.

"Commander," the operator called over to the Turian CO of the Headquarters.  
While carrying a steaming mug of some dextro-acidic beverage in his hand, the CO quickly finished whatever he was doing and came up behind the operator to see the screen for himself.

"What've you got?" he asked casually while taking a deep swig from the mug. Tapping at their console the operator zoomed in on the digitalized area of the Presidium the warning was mapping out for them, one that showed a flashing golden dot where the breech was believed to be located.

"The lower level sensors in Sector C-15 are detecting an un-authorized opening in the hull," the operator explained. This information suddenly made the CO suspicious, causing him to lower the mug from his lips and squint at the screen carefully.

"That's the maintenance tunnels just under the Market District, the same ones that the…" he said to himself, almost forebodingly.

"Sir…" the operator began trying to ask, but the CO interrupted, having now turned very serious.

"Get gunships loaded with EVA security teams to that location, now!" he ordered.

* * *

The airlock door that had de-cloaked along with the rest of the partial section of the escape ship's hull slid apart, revealing two more able bodied Jaffa warriors dressed in standard grey chainmail armour standing at the edge of the open archway. These ones however were bare faced with no robotic headpieces and bore the black circular mark of Apophis tattooed on their foreheads.

The two men silently knelt down and picked up a large mobile loading ramp from the deck before throwing one end across the bottomless windswept gap in front of them, creating a small bridge between the ship and the Sardaukars' opening.

The moment the tossed end of the ramp clanged down onto the corridor's floor, the Predator-Killer shouldered his unconscious baggage again and stormed across its grated surface, without even first testing the balance to see if it was secure enough to walk on. As the others began following the Yautja's example, marching single-file across the narrow makeshift gangplank overlooking the soft silver ball of light that was Widow thousands of miles below them, Torrvk stayed where he was to survey what he could see of the half-cloaked vessel that gently bobbed up and down against the rough currents of wind still swirling around the area.

"A Tel'Tak? Really? I was waiting for something a bit more impressive like an Imperial shuttle, or a Bird of Prey," Torrvk remarked disappointedly to the Serpent leader who stood next to him.  
From the design of the airlock and what little there was showing of the surrounding hull patterns, and the fact that it had Jaffa piloting it, the Turian was able to easily recognize the low-key Goa'uld cargo ship floating in front of them despite most of it still being invisible to the naked eye.

"Then you shall wait indefinitely, for this is our mode of transportation," the Serpent leader retorted sharply before he too stormed up the ramp as the last of the group boarded the ship, with Torrvk quickly following behind him after the Turian allowed himself an amused shrug.

* * *

Moira gave out an exhausted breath before sagging back lazily in her seat, massaging the joints in her fingers to ease the soreness they were experiencing after having typed so fast. The red symbol that was flashing on the main screen disappeared abruptly; with the beige military file re-materializing back in the spot it had been before the Erosion warning had popped up. Bailey smiled genuinely as Sydow's copied information began slowly downloading into the brand new file Moira had created.

"Great job Moira! I'll see to it C-Sec gets you accommodated for this," the lieutenant said while clapping her on the shoulder jovially.

"Just make sure they foot the bill for any up'n-coming arthritis medication," Moira added with a light scoff as she clenched and unclenched her fingers to work the strength back into them. While Bailey walked around her desk and came to a stand in front of the wall screen, Moira and Chellick stood up from their own seats and walked over to either side of him.

"Alright Capitaine Sydow, time to see just what kind of a person you were," Chellick stated smoothly as he folded his arms in anticipation, pronouncing Sydow's rank with a surprisingly convincing French accent.

By now Sydow's name and rank had finished downloading into view, but while the three awaited the rest of the dossier they already started to notice that something was wrong with it.

No picture was coming up, no legible date of birth appeared within its designated area, no description.

…No _history _could be seen.

"Oh no…" Moira uttered out, her face dropping as the entirety of the file unfurled across the screen. All of the information was still there in front of them, each piece digitalizing one after the other into the brand new pages of the of the folder, but it was completely unintelligible.

Other then the mystery Captain's name and designation, all of the words and sentences had been replaced by sequences of numbered computer-code to make up for the corrupted text that had initiated the Erosion warning in the first place!

"Is this it? Where's the information?!" Chellick asked after a moment of awkward silence had passed, allowing the weight of this disappointing outcome to sink in.

"I was afraid this would happen. My copy trick was able to get everything out of Sydow's original file, but the degradation in the text was too much for the computer to reconstruct. It basically translated everything it recognized into its own software dialect," Moira answered.

"So that means we can still decode it to find out what was written?" Chellick asked, unable to hide some of the hopeful enthusiasm in his voice. Placing her hands on her hips, Moira bobbed her head from side to side, half shaking half nodding with a scrunched up face of dramatic uncertainty.

"Think you could do it Moira?" Bailey asked after looking to her out of the corner of his eye.

"I _could_ decode all of that if I had three or four free days to work on it, plus a shopping list of equipment I'd need to hook up to the Academy's archive drives," Moira finally summed up with an arching of her mouth and a cocked eyebrow.

"Then get your list together and send it in to the Requisitions Office upstairs, I'll cover the fees…" Bailey began to her quickly, hoping that they would be able to get the tools she needed within the day and maintain the momentum they had built up around this investigation.

However before he could speak any further a Turian voice rose above the usual ambient noises that drifted around the office from the dozens of other C-Sec agents surrounding the trio, a voice that was directed at them specifically.

"Lieutenant Bailey!" The young Turian agent that had spoken to Bailey earlier in the interrogation room housing Steve Irwin called across the labyrinth of desks, hastily making his way over towards the older Human while bumping into or brushing past any other people in his way.  
"Lieutenant sir. You remember those four Turian suspects we arrested at that Med Clinic in the Upper Wards? They just offered to give us information on their employer in exchange for a bargain," the agent explained while out of breath after he rushed over toward the trio and snapped off a hasty salute.

"We're in the middle of our own investigation here officer, you'll have to find someone else to negotiate with them," said Bailey after gesturing up to the wall screen. However though the winded agent quickly shook his head.

"You don't understand sir, they asked for both you and Lieutenant Chellick _by name_. They said it was a matter of life and death, and that their offer was only going to be on the table for the next few minutes unless you two came to see them in person!"

Bailey and Chellick turned to the agent with grave looks on their faces, both officers glancing at each other for a second before Chellick gave a conceding nod.

"Moira, lock down your terminal. You're coming with us on this one," Bailey ordered over his shoulder before he quickly reached toward his desk, snatching up Alexandre Henri's flintlock as he began following the Turian agent out of the office.

"I-I am?" Moira blurted out after him in surprise, even as she eagerly spun around and imputed a code into her keyboard that shut down her terminal and the wall screen, all of that being done from an upside down perspective while reaching far over her desk.

"Welcome to the team partner," Chellick stated with a smirk before he and Moira ran after Bailey and the other man.

* * *

The Xenomorph quietly sagged to one side as the Predator-Killer lowered it from his shoulder into the large oval cryo-freezing pod that had been built specifically to house it. Upon ensuring that the creature was still sedated and not faking its current condition, the Predator reached down and tapped the activation button located on the rim of the pod. Two heavy curved doors on either side of the coffin-like capsule slid up from the floor and sealed together with a heavy thud, locking the Alien inside before its cryogenic sequencing came to life, thus placing the creature into a deep…and cold…hibernation.

Seeing that their prize was secure for the long journey ahead the Predator sharply turned from the pod and marched out of the Tel'Tak's large aft cargo bay leaving behind Anubis, the singular Horus-Guard, both Serpent Guards, and the three Sardaukar to act as security for the Xenomorph.

The whole interior of the Goa'uld cargo-ship was very dimly lit, its various lights reflecting a faded orange off its black marble floors and golden walls that bore thousands of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics across their surfaces. The dim illumination was a result of the ship operating at minimal power and its engines running cool, with most of the energy being supplied to the vessel's cloaking device and to partial life support only, in order to further conceal its presence from the Citadel's sensors.

While the black door for the makeshift prison chamber slid closed behind the Yautja-Hunter after he stepped into the ship's spacious cockpit, Torrvk turned around to the narrow windshield that crescented across the hull near the nose of the Tel'Tak's bow.  
Behind him the squad of Stormtroopers began taking up a guarding formation around the door to the cargo bay, while off to the side the two barefaced Jaffa were sealing the starboard airlock after reeling in the mobile ramp the team had used to board the ship with.

Allowing himself an evil grin as the pair of Goa'uld warriors crossed over and quickly sat in the two pilot seats set up in front of the flight consoles spread out just under the windshield, Torrvk placed both hands on the gold and black triangular island positioned in the center of the room a few feet behind them, craning his neck to see through the slanted glass to the endless Nebula swirling out in front of the ship's line-of-sight.

Victory was almost within their grasp.

"Do not allow yourself such satisfaction prematurely, we have not yet completed our escape," rumbled the deep voice of the Serpent leader from off to the side, having pretty much read Torrvk's mind after noticing his gleeful expression. Scoffing in sardonic amusement the Turian traitor glanced over to his right as the large Serpent Guard came up beside him.

By now the leader had removed his Cobra headpiece and left it leaning against the cockpit's bulkhead next to his discarded staff-weapon. While standing next to the Turian in the remainder of his Jaffa armour with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, Torrvk was able to make out the tall Guard's revealed facial features despite the sparse lighting engulfing them.

The man was dark skinned all over with a large bald head and a very strong wide jaw. His lips were full and his nose evenly broad, while his black eyebrows were thin and trimmed. Up above those, positioned directly in the center of his forehead was the familiar symbol of Apophis, looking very nearly identical to the black tattoos branded onto the foreheads of the Tel'Tak's two front pilots.

Except this man's brand was special, his being made of pure gold raised upon the surface of his skin!

This shining brand was a clear indication of the rank this man held. He was, or at least _had been_ at one time in his life, the First Prime to Lord Apophis himself.

As Torrvk observed every detail in the Jaffa standing next to him, he also noticed one striking feature that he had seen many times on the thousands of warriors he'd met during his months of training within Viraden's secret fortress.

The First Prime's eyes were a deep gold colour, almost as gold as the brand that adorned his forehead!

Both his irises were of this unusual colour, surrounding the black of his pupil perfectly like he had been born naturally with them. And to top it all off, as if to add to the already eerie effect this colour created, the gold of these eyes seemed to be giving off a faint glow that lightly shined outward in the darkness of the Tel'Tak's interior.

(And made him look like a freakin' _vampire_ in the process!)

"My lord. Our sensors detect multiple gunship-class vessels moving fast toward this location!" one of the Jaffa pilots suddenly called back to the First Prime. Snapping his head away from the Serpent Leader, Torrvk craned his neck again to see out through the windshield in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the mentioned ships.

Within seconds he saw them, four sleek black hulls belonging to A-61 Mantises rising over the top of the Presidium Ring before diving down below the underside of the Citadel Tower, jet-streaking through the misty clouds of the Serpent Nebula at high speeds on a direct heading for their position.  
With a sneer of contempt Torrvk turned back to the First Prime, sharply jabbing a talon at the approaching wing of fighting ships.

"I warned you Citadel Security would investigate!" he spat angrily. But to Torrvk's surprise the gold glowing eyed Jaffa merely regarded the Turian with a cold glance before cocking one of his thin eyebrows, his chiseled features remaining firmly set without the slightest show of concern.

"Indeed," he stated flatly before turning his gaze back to the windshield.

"Bring the engines to half thrust, keep all other ship functions operating at minimum power. We shall glide past them un-noticed before setting a course for the carrier itself," the First Prime ordered up to the front, cutting Torrvk off before he could take the opportunity to make another outburst. The pilots immediately complied, tapping a series of codes into their consoles before the Jaffa on the right placed both his hands on either side of the glowing red control sphere that extended out toward his abdomen, the sphere acting as the Goa'uld version of a steering system.

At his touch the Tel'Tak shifted, its marble deck slanting slightly to the left as the pilots maneuvered the cargo-ship in that direction away from the rectangular hole gaping in the side of the Citadel's gargantuan hull. Everyone in the cockpit who was standing, aside from the First Prime and the Predator-Killer who was leaning against one of the bulkheads with his arms crossed, had to grab hold or brace themselves against something to keep their balance.  
While the First Prime miraculously maintained his footing against the continuing movement of the ship, all with his hands still placed comfortably behind his back, Torrvk had to firmly grab both sides of the central island to keep himself from staggering over.

After weightlessly drifting several dozen meters away from the Presidium's hull, the pilot brought them to a sudden stop and leveled the Tel'Tak out, allowing Torrvk and the Stormtroopers a chance to regain themselves.  
Directly ahead the four C-Sec Mantises had just flown to within shooting distance of them, each of their twin-engines screaming as they continued blazing on their intended flight-path, none of them slowing down or giving any indications that they had detected the cargo-ship.  
With a masterful manipulation of the controls the Jaffa pilots gently began gliding the ship forward, pushing the cloaked vessel across the endless void of clouds at a slow cruising speed, aiming the sharp nose of her bow straight at the oncoming gunships!

Torrvk clenched his jaw as they floated closer and closer to the speeding wedge of vehicles, his hands tightening in anticipation, expecting at any second for the ships to unload a salvo of missiles upon them.

For what was only seconds in real-time by felt like hours, the two forces continued to approach one another, causing the Turian to grind his teeth in restless frustration for the inevitable outcome.  
Finally though, preceded by a tense last-second intake of breath, the Tel'Tak easily skimmed underneath the bellies of the four screeching craft as they shot over them, the quartet narrowly passing their invisible hull in under a second. The wake generated by the wing's rough passage made the ship shudder violently for a brief moment, causing everyone including the First Prime to glance up at the ceiling expecting something to give way on them!

But nothing did, and soon with another manipulation of the controls the pilots were bringing the Tel'Tak's engines up to full power, soaring further out before pulling the ship into a heavy climb through the negative space in-between the inside of the Presidium Ring and the Citadel Tower, shooting them up through the Nebula clouds on a speeding trajectory toward Widow's Mass Relay.

Within moments they were completely in the open, flying out of the vast encompassment of the five Station Arms in full view for C-Sec or any of the dozens of ships floating about the Citadel to see, and yet remaining invisible to both their sensors or any random eyes that may have been glancing out of windows at this very moment.

The knowledge of this assured camouflage and anonymity gave Torrvk a deep sense of security, allowing him to blow out a relieved breath and relax his tense body. The First Prime however stayed rooted to the spot, his large muscles and posture remaining just as rigid as they had the moment he had stepped onto the ship.

"I believe now would be an appropriate time to deliver our little parting gift to the Citadel, and dispose of any major evidence that would inform the Council of what truly happened here today," Torrvk suggested shortly over to him before turning back to look out through the windshield, which was now starting to show sections of the Mass Relay poking through the swirling purple-ish mists far up ahead of them.  
Cocking his eyebrow again in a sort of silent agreement, the First Prime brought one of his hands from behind his back to the piece of plated chest armour that covered his pectoral region all the way down to his waist. Slipping this said hand underneath the chest-plate, the gold-eyed Jaffa pulled out a small black cylinder barely any bigger than his palm.

Built into the top of it was a barely noticeable button.

The Jaffa's thumb rose above the button and made to press it. But before he did however he hesitated, his features taking on a very subtle expression of indecision. It must have been Torrvk's imagination, but from his perspective it even looked as though the First Prime were suffering from a momentary attack of…_doubt._

Without a word the Jaffa turned his head to the side so that his eye could look over his shoulder back to the squad of Stormtroopers behind him.

"What of the survivors? How much longer do they have?" he asked to the leader of the squad. Glancing down at his chronometer again, the Storm Commander looked back up immediately.

"_Their internal capsules will break within the minute,"_ the trooper reported. Just as the First Prime was opening his mouth to say something else, Torrvk interrupted by reaching out his hand and wrapping it around the fist in which the man held the device.

"Then may Lord Viraden have mercy upon their souls," he quoted coldly, mashing his thumb talon down onto the cylinder's button before the Jaffa had a chance to stop him.

* * *

_Citadel Control, this is Mantis Wing Bravo-9. We have reached the specified coordinates,"_ reported a Turian agent in a radio-garbled voice, who at this moment was piloting one of the Mantis gunships that had been ordered to investigate the breach in the station's hull. All four gunships that had been sent here had come to an abrupt hover around the rectangular hole, with three of them positioning themselves at different vantage points a fair distance back from it. The fourth Mantis operated by the Turian was the one to take point, slowly maneuvering closer toward the Presidium's shiny silver plating until he and his co-pilot could look through the canopy of their cockpit and see the damage for themselves.

"_Roger that Bravo-9, what do you see?"_ a female voice responded through the Turian's headset. Leaning forward in their seats, the two pilots gazed out at the gaping rectangular with suspicious eyes, now realizing that the warning received by the Defense Headquarters had not been because of some faulty maintenance.

"_It's a large opening about eight feet tall and four feet across. It's positioned just high enough to remain within the lower levels of the atmosphere bubble, and from the looks of it I'd say it was sliced out by some kind of high intensity cutting tool. Whatever happened here was definitely not an accident, someone did this deliberately,"_ the Turian explained as his gaze roamed over the melted metal edges where the Sardaukars' Lasguns had burned through the wall.

What the pilots of the Mantises weren't able to see however was the large shadowy figure couching near the end of the corridor they were all looking into. A figure with long thick dreadlocks hanging around his shoulders, who at this very moment was also gazing over the open exit left behind by the strike-team's departure.

(duh Duh DUH!)

**And here is where I'm actually gonna do something that I've never done before, I'm going to cut it off at this part and give it to you guys as is! Technically this chapter still isn't finished yet, but you've all been waiting a good five months now and the chapter itself has over 35000 words already. So consider this a five-day late Halloween present from me, hope you guys enjoyed it! **

**P.S. Oh a****nd for everyone who messaged me after the last chapter saying that they didn't know who Rahm Kota was, here's a link to a picture of him cause he's too awesome a character to not know what he looks like!**

**art/Rahm-Kota-290927987 (It'll take you to Google so pick the first option it gives you)**

**Cheers everybody!**


	14. Roadblock

**Continuation of previous chapter. **

The Predator, the _original_ Predator who had first arrived on the Citadel hours earlier due to the mystical powers of Axel's mysterious ring, shifted his weight on the large metal air duct he was using to stay up out of the bright rays of silvery light that flooded into the corridor.

Though deeply battered and bruised after his near death experience during the spinning crash of Echo 2, the Hunter was still very much alive and hell-bent to solve the riddle of Axel's journey in this increasingly bizarre universe.

(Rejoice my people! For He has returned!)

Many pieces of his armour were rent or dented after his sudden uncontrollable departure from the Military Docks, and even though he had come away from the ordeal without any major bodily harm he had still received several nicks and scratches across his frame, all of which had trickled out small amounts of the Yautja's florescent green blood from time to time.  
Thankfully his active camouflage had been able to conceal his blood's natural bioluminescence. Unfortunately though it was only able to conceal the blood that stayed on his _person_, and not the steady stream of drops that had fallen from his body whenever he moved.

That fact had been especially annoying during the moments after his break from Axel and Alec.

While the Mantis had been spinning out of control down toward the sprawling mass of apartment complexes many feet below the Docks, the Hunter had withdrawn his dagger from its hull and taken a massive blind leap away from the careering vessel. Consequently this made him briefly soar through the air before violently smashing down into one of the upper rooves of the nearest complex-building. His heavy bulk was able to easily splinter through a random apartment's ceiling before he came crashing onto a dark carpeted floor within a luckily abandoned room, landing in a painful heap amongst a huge pile of jagged debris which left him with several of the nasty gashes he now carried.

Though immediately after this loud entrance a startled feminine shout had emanated a short distance away from him, proving that the room was not as abandoned as he had initially thought.

Snapping his head up through the dust-hazy debris pile with his red tri-lasers and Plasma Caster activated, the Predator had been greeted to the sight of a beautiful sea-blue skinned Asari standing before him, an Asari who had only just stepped out of an adjoining steam-filled bathroom.

Unfortunately for her she had been completely naked at the time, save for a short form-fitting towel that she hastily tried wrapping around her glistening torso!

The Predator could only rear back in surprise when he saw her, the dots from his lasers briefly resting on the nape of her neck before shutting down when he realized she didn't present a threat.  
While the terrified Asari had held her towel close to her chest with both hands and stepped back a few paces, the Predator had simply cocked his head in curiousity, taking his time looking up and down her attractive figure through his bio-filters.

Then, after satisfying his interest and with a flaring of the mandibles within his mask, the Hunter had lunged forward on all fours and given a snarling growl!

In response the Asari had screamed in hysteria before dropping her towel, which briefly gave the Yautja a nice view of her _assets_, followed by her dashing back into the bathroom and forcefully shutting its door; all of this being done while shouting something about monsters.

At the time the Predator had only been able to shake his head while chuckling deeply in his native language.  
Whenever he wasn't actively killing sentient beings he always loved using his menacing presence to toy with them. It provided him no end of amusement watching their reactions, especially when they ran squealing like frightened children!

Milliseconds after this interesting encounter however, Echo 2 itself would cause a gut wrenching quake to run throughout the entire area by crashing not far from the Hunter's location; it's remaining pilot managing to break the ship out of its wild rotations just long enough to put it into a rough emergency landing within one of the wider walk-streets running in-between the rows of buildings.  
Though despite the pilot's timed steering the wings and repulsors of the craft would smash against the walls of the nearby units, its belly scraping into the metal of the laneway and carving a deep rugged track-mark all the way down until it came to a harsh abrupt stop.  
As it turned out the thing that actually _did_ stop the runaway ship had been the wall of another apartment building built into a second street that ran perpendicular to the one it had screeched down, with the Mantis having smashed headfirst into it.

Ignoring the throbbing flare of his injuries the Predator had silently pulled himself from the junk pile he'd created, climbing out of the Asari's apartment through its new 'sun-roof' and leaping down into the fiery debris-strewn street remodeled by the Mantis's passage.

Running over to its wreckage as fast as he could, the Yautja had climbed up the side of its scratched hull and ripped open the canopy of the cockpit with his bare hands. After leaning inside he had found the gunship's pilots slumped limply over their controls. Both of them had been covered in streams of blood trickling out of several deep cuts they'd received from their rough landing but were otherwise still alive and breathing shallowly.  
Activating the X-Ray vision in his Bio-mask, the Predator had quickly rummaged through the cockpit looking for any medical supplies that would help him tend to his own bleeding injuries, unceremoniously shoving over the sleeping pilots while he searched through their stations.

Normally the Predator would have been able to treat his injuries using his own specialized medical gear. However at that moment he had needed to improvise, since Axel's ring had somehow been able to separate him from his personal Medical Kit and other field treatments when it had brought him to this universe.

After a few tense moments passed with growing C-Sec sirens echoing in the distance, he eventually found a small unused First-Aid kit which he quickly grabbed before jumping from the smoking Mantis and dashing off into the shadows of a nearby alleyway.  
Activating his camouflage along the way, the Hunter had been able to seamlessly blend in with the darkness just as a crowd of concerned citizens began pouring out of the various apartments in response to the mayhem caused by the crash.

Without hesitation he had immediately set out toward the large section of hull that loomed over the sprawl of complexes. In the beginning the Hunter had been adamant in simply climbing back up to the Docking platforms and continuing his pursuit of the strange terrorists and his stolen Combi-Stick.  
But before he'd been able to even attempt scaling the towering wall of metal and machinery, erratic reports and weapons' fire would begin screaming through the stolen C-Sec earpiece he still had on him.

According to the hectic array of shouting coming from the voices of numerous Citadel agents, the Blonde Duo had joined forces with a horde of unknown mechanized creatures that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

While the Predator stealthily made his way through the shadows and deep back-ways running throughout the sprawl, searching for a quicker way from which to re-enter the Docks unseen, he had continued to eavesdrop on the widespread transmissions broadcasting the progress of C-Sec's increasingly dogged pursuit.

And a dogged one it was.

From what the reports had given, within a time span of less than twenty minutes the terrorists and their newfound synthetic allies went from: locking themselves inside a military warehouse, to creating numerous holographic copies of Axel and engaging the C-Sec forces in hand-to-hand combat, before finally escaping in a blazing show of fire with Axel manning an advanced war-suit of some kind while Alec air-surfed on the back of a giant flying spider!

By that time as these events were called out one after the other the moment each occurred, the Predator had finally found a suitable area from which to begin climbing and had already managed to free-scale halfway up the mountainous wall toward the Docking Platform where all this was taking place.  
With his dagger in one hand, stabbing periodically into the Citadel's hull to give himself better leverage, and his other hand hooking his reptilian claws into whatever nooks or spaces he could find between the thousands of interlocking plates that made up the wall, the Hunter had ascended gracefully higher and higher like a serpent casually making its way up an incline.  
The wind from the Presidium's atmosphere bubble would eventually start making his dreadlocks and pieces of leather that adorned his body flutter loosely around him, the more altitude he gained the more harder he had to concentrate to keep from losing his grip.

Soon however, all of that climbing became for naught.  
For upon hearing of Axel's dramatic flight across the Citadel and the massive squadron of C-Sec vehicles giving chase, the Hunter had ceased in his steep ascent and given a low growl, remaining clung to his vantage point for a moment before viciously driving his fist into one of the hull-plates.

(Apparently that little outburst managed to leave behind a detailed impression of his knuckles in the metal. Its probably still up there right now.)

Even with his technology and tracking skills, there was no way he would've been able to catch up to the elusive duo on foot!

For the second time this day his chance to restore his lost honour, and at the same time get some damn answers about this entire fiasco, had slipped through his fingers.  
With a steely determination the Predator had activated his grappling hook and stabbed its sharpened head into the purple hull, leaping away from the mass of wall and letting gravity bring him back down to the apartment sprawl far below him.  
As he had fallen the silver cord connected to the hook had reeled out from the gauntlet he held above himself, allowing him to safely drop before the line ran out and became taut, leaving him dangling in the air not far above the ground.  
With the press of a button the hook had detached from the wall and the Hunter had plummeted the last thirty feet, slamming down behind a cluster of buildings in a dramatic crouch, with the cord and hook retracting back into his gauntlet a second later.

Knowing that his goal of catching up to Axel was virtually un-attainable at that point, the Predator had let his annoyance fade before re-gathering his wits and setting off at a steady pace back in the general direction of the Market District.

He may have been unable to stop his little group of renegades from getting away from him, which most likely meant that they would later elude him further and escape from the Citadel into the far reaches of space. In the event that that happened the Predator took solace in the fact that they would at least still be alive and free for him to chase after once he managed to pick up their trail again.

Despite these recent setbacks the Predator was still as determined to finish this incredible new Hunt that he had been unwittingly forced into. Even after everything that had been thrown in his way he _would_ still achieve his goal, no matter the obstacle.

He would run Axel and his cohorts down to the very ends of this new galaxy to recover his stolen property and receive the answers to the questions he sought, even if that meant needing to hijack an entire Council Dreadnought in order to do it!

However, for the time being there was still one _other_ matter he had to deal with before he could devote all of his efforts into catching back up with the Blonde Duo.

A matter involving claws, acid, and an unquenchable appetite for anything and _everyone_ on this station.

* * *

And now here he was hours later, in the dingy belly of the Market District with bandages and gauzes from the stolen First-Aid kit patched over his bleeding cuts.

As he'd feared Axel had indeed managed to escape in the time it had taken him to traverse across the Presidium, with reports of the terrorists' unorthodox evasion of the _Destiny Ascension_ having blared into his ear the moment he'd set foot within the District's territory.  
It couldn't be helped now, what was done had been done. Though his misgivings about the state of things were strong, the Hunter was able to quickly see that his desire for answers was actually a _secondary_ objective. There would be time to deal with Axel later.

The Xenomorph was his true priority; there could be no exception to the containment of the Great Serpents.

It was definitely going to set him back by a few days, weeks maybe if their group got lucky, but eventually he would pick up their scent again and follow them across the stars to the source.

Meanwhile concerning his hunt for the Alien.  
In the beginning he'd been able to easily infiltrate the now heavily guarded District and quietly re-enter the destroyed Corridor where he had first lost sight of the creature during the battle. From there the Predator had been able to use his skills and bio-technology to pick up the faint trail of pheromones and periodic burn marks where acid blood had been left behind by the surviving Xenomorph's battered body, allowing him to patiently track the Serpent to its lair far down toward the very bottom of the Citadel.

Except now the situation had taken a very odd turn. The problem of containing the Xenomorph's existence had morphed into an utter catastrophe!

Even as the Hunter crouched on his air-duct within the darkness of the corridor he could still barely believe what had happened.  
The Xenomorph had been stolen right out from under him, kidnapped by an incredible group of assassins for some unknown purpose.  
He had even witnessed the last half of the abduction as it had transpired, having arrived at the Alien's junction lair just as the group was preparing to leave with his prey.  
Thanks to Echo 2's First Aid kit the blood from his wounds had been sufficiently contained by then and was no longer able to fall from his body so as to give away his position. This, coupled with his camouflage, had allowed him to silently slither up into the pitch-black of the corridor's collection of air ducts and follow behind the exiting group unseen.

Minutes later after having stealthily crept behind the moving group one duct length at a time, they had come to a stop at the very spot where the Hunter was now presently overlooking.

At the time the Predator had been deeply considering assaulting the group to keep them from making off with the mysteriously mutated Xenomorph. Whatever had caused the troubling changes to the Alien's physical makeup was obviously what this diverse cast of characters had come for, and it was a conundrum that the Hunter felt obligated to stop them from solving.

Only he couldn't. Not just because he was outnumbered and didn't know any of the assassins' prowess in battle, but because of the one creature in particular who was bearing the Alien over its shoulder.

The Predator scowled in disgust as he remembered looking upon the taller Super-Predator only moments ago; how he had been able to easily pick out all of the different weapons and pieces of armour adorning its body that it had obviously pilfered from the corpses of other Hunters.  
It was a subtly gruesome sight that had been powerful enough to make his blood nearly boil and his right hand clench in readiness with the intent of activating his wrist blades.

The sudden hatred he now bore for this Yautja was not only a personal response that he had mentally created and engrained in himself over the span of his long life, but it was also a very instinctual one that had developed within the mindset of his people since before he had even been born.

For centuries now a deep-rooted blood feud had existed between his people and a growing sub-species of Yautja to which this Killer in particular belonged to. There was no real name for their kind in the Predator language, but there was a title, a label of distain given to _any_ who willfully betrayed the laws of the Hunt and slew their own kin.

In the Predator's eyes, this abomination, this Predator-_Hunter_, was an _Ic'jit._

A Bad Blood.

Just the thought of that word made the Hunter growl lowly with fury.  
It had been decades since he'd seen a Bad Blood in the flesh, the last time having been during a deadly encounter that had quickly turned into a harrowing experience; one which had left its mark upon him both mentally…and physically.

As he thought back to that unpleasant memory from so many years ago, the Predator absently raised a hand and brushed his scaled fingers over the three shallow claw-marks that faintly travelled from his left temple down across the metal and recessed black eye of his Bio-Mask before ending just above the solid area where his mouth would be.

It would have satisfied his newfound desire for vengeance if he had simply leapt from his perch and run this new Bad Blood through. But it would've made everything he had survived through up to this point be for nothing. He could have slain the Yautja-Hunter and avenged all of the Predators who had fallen under it's blade in one swift stroke, but he himself would have been quickly cut down in return by the rest of the assassins.  
Thus he would have died without learning the reason for why he had been brought to this universe; he would have died knowing that his foolhardy gesture would have ended up being for naught since the Alien would still have fallen into enemy hands anyways, and he would have died without at least having reclaimed his Combi-Stick from Axel's thieving Shape-shifter.

No. Even though it meant he was basically handing over one of the Great Serpents to an unknown enemy and a Yautja traitor, there was nothing to be gained from stopping the assassins now.

With this thought in mind the Predator had chosen to stay his hand, allowing the black armoured members of the group to laser cut their way through the wall of the perpendicular corridor to the blinding outside world.

There would be other opportunities on the journey ahead to rid himself of the scarred Xenomorph and the Hunter-Killer.  
For the time being the Predator would simply have to 'live to fight another day', and allow the Bad Blood to leave with it's accomplices and their prize.

Though despite the logical reasoning behind his decision, the taste of defeat was still a bitter thing to swallow.  
Even now after the strange group had departed on their stealth ship, the Predator's right fist remained clenched while the sharp tips of his upper mandibles clicked together loudly in disapproval.

However, what the Predator was unaware of at this very moment was that far behind him back down in the Corridor Junction where the bodies of the five C-Sec search teams still lay strewn across the floor, the diamond shaped device left behind by the Sardaukar had started to hum loudly.

While that happened the red light emanating from the black sphere fixed in its center began flashing dimmer and then brighter.  
As the seconds went by this flashing began to increase in frequency.

* * *

"Clear a sector!" the young Turian shouted up to a group of C-Sec officers who were idling around the entrance to the low ceilinged corridor he was currently running down.  
At his command the startled group broke apart, each person looking at each other in confusion as the Turian and Lieutenant Bailey flew past before bounding up the short staircase to their right, soon being followed by a gaining Chellick and Moira.

Quickly the four raced up the next set of stairs that led into the main Atrium of the Academy, whipping past the archway for the staircase that led down into the Spectre Requisitions Office, before crossing out in front of the Academy's massive glowing blue elevator shaft and dashing over to the far side of the facility.

"Did the prisoners explain why their offer was a matter of life and death?" Chellick asked up to their guide as the quartet passed a pair of Turian guards before thundering down a longer flight of stairs and making a left into one of the blue-lit corridors that held several of the Academy's many interrogation rooms.

"No sir. But they did make it clear that if you two didn't speak with them immediately they would be forced to retract their offer," the younger man answered over his shoulder while they all continued sprinting.

"This way, they're just up ahead," he added with a point of his talon toward a single door built midway down the corridor.

As the group charged past sealed rooms one after the other, the door for another room not far from the one they were rushing toward suddenly slid apart to allow two Humans to step into the hallway.  
One was a tall trim-cut C-Sec agent with dark skin, while the other was a slightly shorter fairer skinned man who appeared to be somewhat Germanic/Scandinavian in origin.

He had dark green eyes and long blonde hair that curved messily down to his shoulders, with a short shaggy beard of the same colour that connected with his sideburns and covered all of his jaw. On his person he wore a pair of shabby black trousers and an un-tucked white dress shirt that had its sleeves rolled up to just under his elbows. Encircling around his right wrist was an interesting assortment of leather straps and bracelets, some of which were made up of decorated wooden beads.

However while all of these various pieces of clothing sort of worked well together, there was one thing that stood out in stark contrast to the entire image that this man presented.  
The left portion of his shirt's chest and shoulder was covered in dried blood, with many holes and tears potting its fabric which allowed a series of treated scratches and cuts adorning that side of his body to show through.

"…Yeah you're free to go, but remember, C-Sec will be watching you _very_ closely. You're still considered a major accessory to a criminal offence. If the Executor decides later on that he wants to bring you back in for questioning I'd advise you to still be on the station for him to do just that," the taller agent could be heard saying gruffly to the bearded man as the two left the room.

"Yeah yeah, this ain't my first time in the box Agent Man. Just fork over my stuff and I'll be on my way," the blonde retorted smarmily as he turned back to face the agent. The agent himself gave a subtle sneer before raising his right hand toward the detainee, which held a tiny grey credit chit wedged in-between his first two fingers.

"Get out of here…" the agent uttered disgustedly, giving the blood-covered man a harsh shove away from the door after he'd taken the chit and casually slipped it into one of his trouser pockets.

"Thanks, I remember where the exit is. Take it easy till' our next meeting; as always you boys have been a real treat!" the blonde called back to the agent with a wide grin as he began sauntering his way down the corridor toward the stairwell behind the approaching four, taking a brief moment to spin around in mid-step and give his former jailer a mocking farewell salute.

"Oh sorry dude!" the blonde quickly apologized to the group's leading Turian as he side-stepped out of the way, allowing the young agent to continue sprinting past him before doing the same for Chellick and Moira when they followed behind him. The faint wake of air created by their speedy passage actually managed to make the bloodied man's hair loosely flutter around his shoulders for a moment.

"What happened? Somebody forget there was free donuts in the break room?" the man asked to himself with a laugh after watching the trio run by him, cocking an impressed eyebrow as he zoomed in on Moira's…'backside'…in particular.

While that was happening Bailey also ran past the man, causing both of them to lock eyes briefly before the blonde turned and continued on his way, giving an overly exaggerated groan as he stretched out his arms before slipping his hands into his pockets and whistling an old folk tune that resounded cheerily throughout the hall.

Immediately Bailey came to a sudden stop next to the tall agent who was still standing in the open doorway, a deep scowl of alarm having come across his face the second he'd looked away from the blonde's eyes.

"Hold on a sec…" Bailey sharply stated aloud before spinning around.

"Officer, what the hell is that man doing out of his cell!" Bailey demanded to the interrogation officer, jabbing a finger at the exiting man's back with his free hand since his other was still holding Axel's ancient flintlock. The agent jerked from the lieutenant's words as if he'd been stung, his face betraying a look of confusion.

"Sir, he made his bail. After we finished questioning him he was able to provide a credit chit that had the funds needed to cover the amount posted on him by the Academy," the agent explained somewhat tentatively. Bailey's near stony face contorted into a look of thinly contained rage.

"That man is under suspicion of knowingly aiding a wanted criminal. His charges are just barely floating in-between Destruction of Public Property and _High-Treason!"_  
The agent scowled, his eyes narrowing to slits and his mouth beginning to open and close indecisively, while his shoulders gave a large shrug and he threw his hands up in the air.

"He made bail! If his funds check out with Lock-Up it's not in my jurisdiction to keep him here, no matter what his crimes are. He coughed up the money to set himself free and legally I was obligated to release him!" he defended hotly.  
Now Bailey turned his pointed finger on the agent, regarding him with a very patronizing look.

"Now you listen to me very carefully. You're gonna bring that guy back here, put him in…" Bailey began instructing coldly.

But even as the words were coming out of his mouth Bailey's voice was suddenly overtaken by a chorus of horrendous male screams that had just started echoing down the corridor!

Both the lieutenant and the agent snapped their heads toward the source of the nightmarish sounds; a sense of dread suddenly befalling Bailey when he saw Chellick, Moira, and their Turian guide all recoiling away from the now open doorway to the room they had been running for. Each of them had a look of horror etched on their faces.

In that instant Bailey and the nameless Human sprinted over to the other interrogation room, arriving there amongst the three within seconds to see what was the cause of the shrieking screams.

As he skidded to a stop and stared into the room, Bailey got his answer.

The four Turian assassins were _dissolving_!

Thick swirls of grey smoke were rising up from each of the men's bodies, slithering out from in between the plates that made up their jet-black armours, and partially obscuring the entire room in a hazy screen. Two of the Turians had already fallen silent, both of them dying as soon as Bailey laid eyes on them. While these two limply crumbled back against the set of chairs that the quartet had been seated in on the far side of the room's center table, the other two continued to wail in agony.  
One of these said assassins had fallen from his seat and was now writhing on the floor, wrapping his arms around his rapidly decaying body before gradually curling up into a fetal position and going silent as well.

It was a sight that would have made even the stoutest of souls cringe.  
All of the assassins' armour and clothing were being dissolved into the hanging smoke by some kind of unseen acid substance, burning away on each of them until their Turian exo-skeletal skins began showing through in patches.

But while this was happening, _another_ acid seemed to be eating the poor men from the inside out!

Their exposed skins were already starting to sizzle away with the rising wisps or fall apart into millions of tiny burning flakes. Smoking holes and sores were beginning to break open across their bodies, quickly expanding outward from their points of origin, stripping their skins to the muscles and then from their muscles down to the _bones_.

By now the screaming had stopped with the three recently deceased Turians continuing to burn away to nothing, the acid eating at their flesh until the whites of their skulls and the insides of their chest-cavities began to show. Soon those began disappearing as well.

The final assassin however was miraculously still alive, groaning and hissing faintly, while remaining partially seated in his chair with his torso and arms slumped out across the table's surface.

With an amazing display of strength that defied the injuries inflicted upon him by the gruesome instrument of his death, the Turian used one arm to push himself a few inches up off the table so that he could lift his sizzling, half bone-exposed face, and stare straight into the eyes of Bailey himself.

"He…lied…to us! ...should've…had…more…time!" was all the assassin could utter in a wretched voice, reaching out a smoking hand toward the group right before his talons and palm area disintegrated into a wispy cloud of drifting ash!

This entire incident, from the moment Bailey arrived at the doorway to the death of this final assassin, transpired within the window of only a few seconds.

As the Turian's body collapsed back down onto the table with a sickening death-rattle, his now handless arm still out-stretched in front of himself, Moira was the first to snap out of her shock.  
Thinking quickly the Hawaiian jumped away from the others toward the side of the interrogation room's doorframe. Using the point of her elbow, she drew back and smashed in a small glass case painted in scarlet red, one that held a single black button within it.  
The force from her elbow instantly shattered the case and also succeeded in striking the button at the same time.

Immediately an alarm rang throughout the corridor, with dozens of red lights placed next to each door flashing on and off simultaneously. What was also immediate was a thick slab of dark metal detaching from a secret compartment built higher up within the wall, one that slammed down to the floor and locked over the doorway's opening with a harsh metallic clang.

This succeeded in sealing off the room from the rest of the Academy.

"Bio Hazard! Hostile foreign substance in interrogation room twelve!" Chellick shouted into his omni-tool, having activated it after he and the others leapt back from the doorway when the slab came down.

"Agents, get a secondary security detail together. I want the Atrium and any exits leading out of this corridor locked down now!" Bailey ordered over to the nameless interrogation officer and the younger Turian who'd brought them down here. Both men hesitated for a moment, still glancing over at the slab of metal with fearful expressions, obviously shaken by what they had just seen.

"You heard him!" Chellick snapped, raising his voice even higher than Bailey's. Right away the agents jumped out of their daze, nodding immediately with a snap salute before breaking off toward the far stairway at a brisk run.

As those two rapidly shrank down the corridor, Bailey's partners came to stand on either side of him, all three of them taking a cautious extra step away from the sealed doorway.

"What kind of a person could do that to someone? To turn their bodies into nothing but smoke and ash while they're _still alive_?" Moira asked out loud, her voice containing a bitter edge.

"Those men were going to tell us who their employer was. They were going to give us their name and maybe even their location. Whoever _He_ is, he knew to plan ahead for exactly this kind of a situation," Chellick answered without looking at her, his eyes remaining glued to the door-slab.

"Just in case they get captured he plans ahead to have them melted down like defunct _car parts_?" Moira began stating in disgust.

"The kind of person who does this is one who views the men under his command as cannon fodder. Whoever their boss is he's shown he won't hesitate to erase evidence any way he can to guarantee his identity remains secret, even if that means erasing his own people," interrupted Bailey, his eyes also remaining on the doorway.

"I can only imagine what _other_ lengths this shadowy bastard is willing to go to to remain anonymous," Chellick remarked in equal disgust.

While Chellick and Moira continued to speak back and forth about the matter, Bailey held up Axel's flintlock so as to gaze upon the ancient name and date printed into its side.

_Alexandre Henri, 1680_

Looking up from the pistol back to the sealed room that now contained the ashen remains of the four mysterious assassins, Bailey couldn't shake the feeling that this half of the investigation had just stumbled into a solid roadblock.

"How does any of this connect…"

* * *

The flashing red light coming from the core of the Sardaukars' device had hit a peak in speed, a speed to which it remained at for a brief moment before abruptly winking out of existence.

Suddenly the diamond mechanism surrounding the sphere broke apart, while the sphere itself exploded!

A massive firestorm of blinding orange flame erupted from the device, lashing out in all directions like a condensed nuclear bomb. Its intensified heat engulfed the entire junction in less then a second; consuming everything it touched in just as much time.  
The black Xenomorph resin coating the walls was swept away in a sudden wave of burning vapours, while the bodies of the five murdered C-Sec teams were incinerated. Everything from their clothes down to their skeletons was instantly reduced to ash, leaving behind only microscopic traces of DNA and melted fragments of their armour suits.

While that was happening the fiery inferno continued to branch outward, travelling down and destroying everything within each corridor the junction was connected to, including the very one the Predator was still inside of.

* * *

The Hunter snapped his head around the moment he heard the Sardaukars' evident Incendiary Bomb explode, the infrared vision in his Bio-mask lighting up brighter then a supernova as the entire far end of the hallway disappeared into the maw of a rapidly approaching vortex of hissing spitting flame!

With instant reflexes the Predator leapt down from his air-duct and made a mad dash for the rectangular opening, pumping every reserve of strength he had into his battered legs.  
However despite the short distance between himself and the Sardaukar's makeshift exit, the rapid jet of flame was shooting down the corridor faster than he could run!

Every flammable piece of material built into the tunnel ignited the moment the fire touched it, adding to its strength and allowing the uncontrollable blaze to move even faster.  
Already the raw power of the swirling inferno had consumed all but the sturdiest of the hallway's infrastructure, the very wisps of its crackling tendrils nearing to less than a dozen feet from his heels!

With only precious moments left before he would be forced to leap into the vast emptiness of outer-space or be consumed within the Hellish spectacle already singeing his backside, the Predator brought up his right arm and smacked the button that would activate his grappling hook once again.

* * *

"_What the hell…"_ the Turian's co-pilot stated with squinting eyes once he noticed the blazing orange glow racing down the corridor toward the opening that their gunship was still hovering in front of.

The Turian however was a lot quicker in recognizing the immediate danger.

"_Pull back! All ships pull back now!"_ shouted the pilot into his headset while his taloned fingers began stabbing into the controls. At his touch the Mantis's repulsors fired out powerful jets of blue-orange flame, rocketing the gunship backwards on a diagonal trajectory.  
The other three ships were following suit almost simultaneously, each veering away from the Citadel in different directions.

And then it happened.

A great wreathing column of fire exploded forth from the opening, reaching far across the immediate space in-between it and the retreating wing of Mantises, while at the same time ripping apart most of the Presidium's lower hull with its force!  
The column roared continuously, never ending in its fury, blowing out from the exit like the flaming breath of an enraged dragon.

* * *

Seconds earlier the Predator had still been sprinting toward the oncoming drop-off.  
With a quick thrust of his arm he aimed and fired the grappling hook/dart at the retreating Mantis that had been hovering near the opening this entire time. Silently the serrated dart-head sunk into the gunship's armoured belly before the vessel could pull out of his range.

Then with a great surge of strength he threw himself headfirst out through the Sardaukars' exit, slamming his fist against another button on his gauntlet and sharply auto-retracting himself up to the fleeing ship just before the entire area behind him exploded apart in a violent geyser of flame and shooting debris!

The Hunter was lucky to get out when he did, for even as he practically zip-lined up toward the underside of the gunship the intense blast still managed to strike him briefly in his upper back.

The Predator was strong, but even he couldn't keep himself from snarling out in pain as the fire seared his flesh and partially ignited a loose piece of cloth built into the armour strapped around his Plasma Caster.

It was only thanks to the active camouflage still concealing him that none of the pilots from the other Mantises noticed his flaming shoulder before he disappeared under the lead gunship's belly.

After retracting up to his dart-hook the Hunter manually grabbed onto the hull and repositioned himself so that his body was horizontal, his arms and legs hugging tightly against the underside of the ship's narrow main structure. After securing his grappling hook, the Predator quickly drew his ceremonial dagger from his leg-sheath and sunk its blade in-between some of the Mantis's overlapping outer plates in order to give himself better anchorage.

As the Mantis pulled itself further away from the Citadel, more destruction continued to rain. Additional jets of fire were starting to break out through the hull along where the second corridor ran, the very one that had been connected perpendicular to the original corridor.

And then all of a sudden, while he was furiously patting down the flames still burning away at his shoulder, the Hunter immediately had to brace himself against his ride as the entire perpendicular corridor erupted open as if it were an active volcano!

A massive tidal-wave of spitting fire and superheated pieces of smoking metal shot out across a large part of the Presidium Ring's inner circumference where the Market District's entire underbelly was situated, the last of the Incendiary Bomb's incredible power destroying another half dozen connecting corridors and leaving their innards exposed to the outside world.

Finally, with that last show of force the flames ceased.

With all of its destructive power exhausted the firestorm snuffed out into dissipating swirls, leaving behind only lingering flames burning sporadically within the wreckage of the once imposing labyrinth.  
Thick columns of black smoke now began rising up through the many glowing hot gashes torn across the hull, blanketing most of the area in front of the Mantises in a heavy cloud of darkness.

"_Bravo-9! Bravo-9 are you alright?!"_ the voice of a female C-Sec operator suddenly began calling with concern to the pilots of the four ships, the Predator's C-Sec earpiece managing to eavesdrop on her transmissions.

"_Yeah…yeah Control we're here, all ships accounted for," _a Turian answered shakily after coughing through his words for a few seconds.

"_Thank the Goddess. What happened? We just felt a tremor from your area run throughout the entire Presidium."  
_Despite his body's orientation the Predator still managed to turn his head to look down at the endless Nebula below the Mantis, the rushing wind from the atmosphere bubble causing his hanging dreadlocks to whip away from his face. Far beneath him he could still see the hundreds of smoking debris fragments freefalling toward Widow, the residual flames trailing from some of them suddenly becoming extinguished as they dropped out of the bubble and into the oxygen-less vacuum of outer-space.

"_We've got a war zone down here. Some kind of massive explosion just tore through the maintenance tunnels under the Market District,"_ the Turian reported as he and the other Mantises began maneuvering back over toward the smoking ruin in front of them.

"_How bad is the damage?"_ inquired the woman on the other end.  
_"Most of the District's underbelly was completely blown out. We need reinforcements, fire control, medical personnel, anyone you can spare. Just get their asses down here now."_  
_"Wait, those tunnels haven't been used in years. You don't think anyone was in there do you?"_ the operator responded with a start.  
There was a long pause, a pause in which the Predator looked up so as to peer through the cascades of smoke still rising out of the glowing orange chasm of twisted metal where the Sardaukar's escape exit had once been, his mind thinking back to the mysterious beings who had caused all of this destruction.

"_Spirits, I hope not…"_ the Turian finally answered in a grave voice.

That was it. With Axel and the Xenomorph now gone there was nothing left keeping the Hunter here. He needed to get off this station and begin tracking them before their trail became too cold.  
To do that he was going to need a starship, preferably something fast and easy to steal.

As he thought on that the Predator cocked an eyebrow and lifted his head to look up toward the cockpit of the ship he was currently attached to, the Yautja equivalent of a small smile spreading across his face.

* * *

"It is done then," the First Prime stated coldly upon hearing the massive wave of garbled radio-chatter beginning to flood C-Sec Academy's emergency lines.

Despite Torrvk's betrayal, Lord Viraden still had many spies within Citadel Security and even a few within the Council Chambers. Right now several of these nameless men and women were eavesdropping on the sudden array of reports concerning the Incendiary Bomb's detonation and relaying them back to the cloaked Tel'Tak's communication system, allowing the group of assassins to hear everything as it transpired.

"We had best hurry. C-Sec may soon be regarding this as a terrorist attack. To ensure security they will send a portion of the Defense Fleet into a guarding position around the Mass Relay to keep any ships from leaving the system," Torrvk explained with a gesture toward the Relay, which was now lying completely in sight dead ahead of them.

As the Goa'uld cargo ship continued speeding toward the enormous alien super-structure, the two Jaffa pilots began inputting a new set of coordinates into their consoles. This was followed by the pilot controlling the Tel'Tak's glowing red steering system making an abrupt course alteration, putting the ship into a starboard turn and veering her away from the Mass Relay.

Torrvk frowned at this odd action before turning toward the First Prime for clarification. To his surprise the Jaffa commander was already staring at _him_, the golden-eyed man's cold expression still remaining across his face.

"That tactic was in-efficient in stopping Axel during _his_ escape, and it shall be just as such during ours," the First Prime retorted before turning his gaze back toward the windshield. Confused, Torrvk also turned back to see just exactly where it was they were heading off to now.

Suddenly the front hull of an enormous star-ship materialized through the Nebula's mists, surging forward until it was damn near on top of the smaller vessel!

Torrvk's head reared back in surprise as the pilots maneuvered the Tel'Tak into a low swoop through the clouds under this new ship's nosing, rising up along its port side until they were flying smoothly down the length of its bow.

From what was partially visible of the larger ship, it appeared to be an old commercial Turian ore carrier.

The ship was massive in scale, with port and starboard wings three times bigger and longer than those of a Hierarchy Battle Cruiser.  
While lacking in any weapons ore carriers made do with thick armour plating that tightly overlapped across their entire structure, built specifically to protect several storage hangars within their bodies that contained the necessary space to house whatever valuable materials they may be chartered to carry.  
The size of the hangars was so large that they accounted for nearly two thirds of a carrier's super-structure, while the remaining portion near the stern was built to house the bridge section and the four colossal aft engines a carrier required to plunge through space.  
Though slow when fully burdened, these transportation vessels contained some of the most powerful engine systems in the known galaxy, allowing them to ferry loads of over five hundred thousand tons from planet to planet with ease.

Like a great Blue Whale gliding through the ocean, the incredible vessel slowly lumbered past the invisible Tel'Tak.  
The stealth ship might as well have been an insect compared to it in size.

The only thing that took away from this majestic moment was how beat up it looked. Large dents and scratches were visible across most of its hull, along with odd dark splotches coated over random areas, looking as if someone had hastily tried to paint the ship a different colour but had stopped halfway through.

"I take it this is the carrier you spoke of earlier?" Torrvk inquired over to the First Prime without taking his eyes off the passing ship.

"Indeed," the Jaffa commander answered with a curt nod.

While the Tel'Tak continued down the carrier's side, it began gliding past a set of large letters painted in the same black colour as the splotch marks.  
After a minute of flying by each letter in sequence, Torrvk was able to spell out the name: VISIGOTH.

"I don't feel that I can condone naming a Turian ship after a type of Human barbarian," he remarked in a distasteful tone, clearly disappointed in the choice of name. The First Prime gave a barely noticeable smirk.

"This is no longer a Turian ship."

Suddenly the Tel'Tak pulled away from the battered carrier, soaring out over the intermittent swirls of the Nebula until it was a few kilometers away from the slow moving behemoth. Then with a quick jab of the controls the Jaffa pilots brought the cloaked ship arching back around in a wide U-Turn before B-Lining it for one of the many hangar doors built into the carrier's side.

As they rocketed towards it the airtight door unlocked and began sliding apart before them, revealing a faint shimmering blue force-field just behind it.

With this field (which is actually known as a Plasma Window in real life. Fun Fact!) in place the doors were capable of opening entirely without risk of exposing the inside of the ship to the vacuum of space, while at the same time allowing materials or smaller ships to enter or leave seamlessly.

Having full knowledge of this, the two Jaffa were able to slow down the Tel'Tak upon approaching the carrier's moving hull and easily glide their smaller craft through the field into the vessel itself.  
After entering the oxygenated atmosphere of the larger ship, the stealth ship de-activated its cloaking device and gently touched down onto the cold steel deck right before the hangar doors sealed shut behind it and the force-field vanished.

Immediately after they landed and the hum of the engines began to die down, the First Prime went over and retrieved his staff-weapon. Deciding to leave behind his Cobra headpiece he pressed a small button built into the starboard airlock beside him, causing it to hiss open and allow him passage off the ship.

While the Predator-Killer and the squad of Stormtroopers moved to bring the Xenomorph's cryo-pod out from the Tel'Tak's cargo hold, Torrvk went after the First Prime.

Following the commander off the ship, both the Jaffa and the Turian heavily stepped out into the gargantuan hangar. Right away Torrvk was caught off guard, freezing in mid-step once he saw what was around them.

This supposed ore carrier was no carrier at all. It had been gutted and converted into a war ready Dreadnought!

The hangar itself was huge, easily being three kilometers in length and at least two in width, all of it illuminated by lines of evenly spaced lights hanging from the ceiling.  
Its metal deck was occupied by rows of various deadly land vehicles and large weapon containers, along with raised platforms placed in front of addition hangar doors.  
For every platform there was an advanced aerial fighter-craft parked on its surface, each one held in place by a network of built-in docking clamps.  
These vehicles were mostly an assortment of Turian and Salarian designs, but there were plenty of smaller spaceships and fast assault vehicles that looked to be Human Alliance in origin.

Over a thousand deck workers and soldiers of several races scurried about the area, all of them dressed in various black uniforms similar to Torrvk's body-suit.  
Many were shouting orders or stowing away gear, making a majority of the hangar incredibly loud. Everywhere he looked he saw men and women running around either carrying crates or helping to direct equipment and machinery into different loading zones.

Looking up toward the ceiling of the hangar he saw large pier-like catwalks stretching out far overhead, all of them connected to a series of humongous support pillars placed about the area, with each catwalk carrying several more aerial assault vehicles held in place by glowing anti-gravity cradles welded to the undersides of their pathways.

While Torrvk continued to slowly spin around in a circle, gawking at how well this operation had been hidden beneath the carrier's old beat up exterior, the First Prime continued to march ahead toward a nearing group of what appeared to be Human and Turian officers.  
Leading from the front of this group was another Jaffa in full armour, this one having brown hair and a cape hanging down from his shoulders.  
The black Goa'uld brand in the center of his forehead was a tattoo of two curved horns rising up and facing in toward each other.  
For what System Lord that symbol belonged to, Torrvk did not know.

Snapping out of his in-attentiveness, the Turian traitor quickly fell back in step behind the First Prime just before they came to a stop in front of the group. Dutifully this new Jaffa saluted the First Prime by placing his fist over his heart and bowing his head.

"Lord Teal'c, the _Visigoth_ is prepared to leave upon your command," the man reported loudly so as to be heard over the ruckus caused by all of the activity going on around them.

The First Prime, now known as Teal'c, lifted his staff-weapon and rested its cobra-hooded end firmly on the deck, holding the weapon erect at his side like a Spartan warrior holding a spear.

"Very well. Commence exit through the Mass Relay immediately."

The other man bowed again before raising his left arm and activating a bright yellow omni-tool.  
While the Jaffa relayed Teal'c's orders to the ship's captain, Torrvk methodically turned around with his hand resting on the butt of his black Carniflex, having heard a large collection of harsh thudding coming from treaded boots hitting the floor.

The Sardaukar, Stormtroopers, and the other two Serpent Guards had just poured out of the Tel'Tak. All of them were now forming into two lines on either side of the cargo-ship's airlock, each man drawing their sabers or pointing their weapons at the object beginning to emerge from the darkened cockpit.  
After a tense moment the large cryo-pod containing the hibernating Xenomorph started making its way out through the airlock. The pod itself was being levitated several feet above the ground thanks to many small anti-gravity repulsors built into its bottom.

Next came the Predator-Hunter who was pushing the sarcophagus-like capsule out in front of himself with his massive clawed hands pressed against either side of it.

Anubis and his silent Horus-Guard counterpart stepped out from the Tel'Tak a second later positioned at both of the Predator's flanks, their staff-weapons activated and ready to fire in the event that the creature suddenly tried to break free.

* * *

Outside, the _Visigoth_'s four aft exhaust ports began to shine a brighter shade of white-blue as their corresponding engines suddenly began increasing to full power. A shuddering thunderclap echoed out across the entire Serpent Nebula as the great ship roared alive like an ancient creature of myth awakening from a long slumber.

While that happened the carrier began to quickly gain in speed, cutting through the purple clouds surrounding it and making many of them swirl chaotically with wake of its passage.

Once the gargantuan ship had flown to within activation-range of the larger Mass Relay, it began firing many of its portside navigational thrusters. This made the ship slowly curve to the right until it was positioned parallel alongside the floating mega-device.

* * *

Up in the carrier's darkened bridge, the ship's captain stood semi-hunched over his navigational officer's console. Up ahead near the bridge's wide viewport were several stations manned by an assortment of Salarians and Asari, all of them working together as a team to control the ship so as to counteract the sluggish maneuverability created by the colossal giant.

"Begin our approach run now," the captain ordered up to the controllers in an eloquent but waxy voice.  
The captain himself was a grizzly old Turian with wrinkled beige faceplates and a deep jagged scar that ran through his left eye, a small memento he'd received during his time as a colonel in the First Contact War.

"Initiating transmission sequence…" one of the Asari helmsmen reported as the carrier started gliding past the Relay's glowing blue core. However as she and the other operators began activating the ship's jump systems, a voice erupted from the communication officer's console.

"_Turian Ore Carrier_ Visigoth! _You are ordered to desist in your current action and turn back from the Mass Relay!"_ the voice commanded.

Immediately the captain shook his head sharply at the helmsmen as they all glanced back at him. Swiftly he cut his way across the bridge toward the communication officer's terminal, giving the Asari a short circling gesture with his wrist and forearm, silently telling her to continue with the procedure.

"That's a negative Control, our ship is already in the first stages of Relay activation. If we back out now we'll run the risk of damaging our client's cargo," the captain lied into the terminal's microphone once he came up and pushed the officer on duty out of the way.

"Relay activation commencing," the Asari stated over her shoulder. Thanks to the viewport, the bridge-staff were able to see the intense blue glow shining through the spinning hoops that encased the Relay's core become brighter, the new spike in energy warping the very space around the ship.

Suddenly a twisting tendril of blue light reached out and connected with the carrier, followed by thousands of others shooting down the Relay's frame toward the ends of its dual prongs.

"_If you…system, you...regarded as... enemy combatant!…"_ the voice began crackling angrily, the interference created by the Element Zero fluctuating within the core causing the message to become garbled beyond comprehension.

The captain merely scowled as he tapped the shut-off button on the console, severing the ship's link to the Citadel.

"Take it up with my boss," he stated sourly.

A few seconds later the carrier became enveloped in a haze of flickering blue energy before blasting down the length of the Relay in the blink of an eye, its massive bulk disappearing into nothingness as it shot through space toward its unknown destination with a resounding FFFZOOO!

**Now _that's_ what I'm talkin' about! We finally got this little side-story out of the way, and I was even able to keep it below 10000 words! SCORE!  
So what did you guys think? A pretty awesome tie up to the last chapter, and it still managed to introduce a few new elements that'll have some decent spotlight later on in the story! **


End file.
